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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | nimrod2 | 44325 | ||
Hank I respect your right to believe in a young earth. In fact i would be willing to fight and die to protect that right. But I do not respect anyone who suggests that I would falsify or distort scripture because of my position on the age issue. It should not be a big issue. I usually don't get this torqued over it. I do get wound up by a couple of things, specifically, bad science, like moon dust arguements, bad logic, arguements from incredulity, straw man arguements and bad theology, meaning believe what I believe or you're not really a Christian. This boy don't play that game. As for ICR, I visited there and Answers-in-Genesis. Frankly, you don't want to know what I know about their "science". I don't mean that disrespectfully either. Thanks for your input and Christ be with you. |
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2 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | Morant61 | 44440 | ||
Greetings Nimrod2! I mentioned this in my other post to you a few moments ago, but I would like to state it a little more clearly. I don't think that the length of a day or the age of the earth is a big issue - or a salvic one. But, I do think that any attempt to harmonize Scripture with Science is a slippery slope. This is the dangerous part. In order to harmonize Genesis 1-2 with Science we would have to say that: 1) Days must mean millions or billions of years. 2) Adam and Eve were not created directly by God as fully functional adults. 3) The creation order in Genesis is simply a literary device, not real. 4) Man first appeared in Africa, not the Middle East where Genesis places the Garden of Eden. 5) God is not necessary to explain creation at all, since evolution is capable of explaining it apart from God. There are probably more, but these are just off the top of my head. I am not concerned with defending scientific creationists, nor am I concerned with protecting a young earth theory. My only concern is that we take what purports to be an historical account and spiritualize it. This trend has now extended beyond the first two chapters of Genesis. Now, there are scholars who deny the historical validity of the rest of Genesis as well. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest, have become only symbols of how a nation came into being, not real historical figures. The fact is that Science has been and probably continues to be wrong about many things, especially when it tries to ignore even the possibility of God. If we try to adjust our views of Scripture to suit every new theory which comes along, we would have to reprint our Bibles every couple of months! :-) So, my question to you is this: Do you accept any of Genesis 1-2 literally? Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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3 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | nimrod2 | 44581 | ||
Dear Tim, My second attempt at a reply. The first was rejected because it exceeded 5,000 characters! Whoops! Live and learn I guess. That hurt because I couldn't retrieve any of it by clicking my "back" button. A discussion of the interpretation of Genesis would be too long a digression here. I will just say that I have come to believe that the main message of the parts in question is simply that God created everything, including humans. The vehicle by which that message is delivered is an account that the original audience could relate to, but which does not try to be a scientific account of origins any more than the parable of the Good Samaritan tries to be an account of road conditions in ancient Palestine. The line attributed to Galileo is relevant: "The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go." It is worth mentioning what the Bible does tell us about creation. The primary teaching is that everything, including us, owes its existence to God. The Bible also teaches us that the creation reflects God's own nature. One thing I take from that is that God made an "honest" universe that will not give us false answers if we ask it the proper questions. This means that, while science (like all human endeavors) is not infallible, it does not have to worry about getting false results because God is playing tricks on us. For example, while we can question the interpretation of fossil evidence, it is not a Biblical option to say that God is deceiving us by putting the fossils there to testify to a history that never happened. Christians through the years have affirmed that God has given us "two books": the Bible and his creation in nature. Since God is the ultimate Author of both, we need not fear that either revelation, properly interpreted, will lead us into falsehood. If there seems to be a conflict, it means that either our interpretation of nature (science) is wrong, or our interpretation of the Bible is wrong, or possibly both. There can be no warfare between "scientific truth" and "Biblical truth," because both come from the one truthful God. What we often find instead of conflict is that the "two books" offer complementary insights into a single God-given reality, like pictures taken from different angles. The insights of science may be of less eternal significance, but they are no less valid.* (*source Allen Harvey) Peace and blessings to you Doug aka nimrod2 |
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4 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | Morant61 | 44612 | ||
Greetings Doug! I too have lost long posts before! Ouch! I finally started using my word processor for any long posts. It saves a lot of time and effort and I can file away any answers worth keeping! :-) I say this in all honesty, not trying to be a wise guy nor pick a fight. But, it seems that you don't hold Genesis to the same standard to which you hold science. If nature must be honest, why musn't Scripture? Laying aside the issue of the length of days or the age of the universe, Genesis clearly says that God created Adam and Eve as full grown and fully fuctioning adults. Why shouldn't this be taken at face value? Would it be 'honest' of God to say that He did something which He did not really do? I agree that scientific truth will never conflict with Biblical truth. However, much of science is not truth but opinion and theory. This 'kind' of science can and often does conflict with Scripture. As I mentioned ealier, my concern is that once we start accomdating Scripture to science we arrive at a slippery slope that never ends. Each time a new theory comes along, Scripture must be conformed. When, in the end, we will more than likely find out that the one in error was the false science. Even in your post, if I can assume some things from you abbreviated comments, you would probably say that Adam and Eve were not created as adults. This is exactly why the issue of a 'day' becomes so important, because most who argue that a day is not a day then go on to say that Adam wasn't Adam either. ;-) As I've posted before, this leads to some serious theological issues as well since human depravity is based upon the headship of Adam. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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5 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | stjones | 44621 | ||
Hi, Tim; It’s been a while. I'd like to address a couple of points in your replies to Doug. 1. You commented here that "most who argue that a day is not a day then go on to say that Adam wasn't Adam either". This is a classic straw man argument, not at all worthy of you. It is very common in these kinds of discussions. It often shows up as "if you assume Genesis 1-2 is not literally true then there's no reason to assume that the gospels are literally true". Or "belief in 'theistic' evolution leads to belief in godless Darwinian evolution". This argument always addresses some potential consequence of the assertion, not the assertion itself. I, for one, believe that "day" does not necessarily mean a literal 24-hour day and I believe that Adam and Eve were the result of special attention by God the Creator that set them apart from all other creatures on Earth. 2. Wise Christians have always accommodated their understanding of Scripture to the revelations of science. The church's pathetic response to Galileo's discoveries is the prime example of failure to do so. But let me say most emphatically that faithful Christians do not accommodate the spiritual truths - i.e. everything related to Jesus, his person, his work, and the necessity of it - to science. These truths can never be contradicted by honest science (see below) because they are beyond what honest science can address. 3. Modern science is indeed deceitful. The validity of science rests solely on the integrity of its deductive logic (reasoning upward and inferring large principles from small observations). Many modern scientists have discredited their own work by reasoning deductively - they start with an assumption that there is no God and reason downward from there. Many "creation" scientists do the same thing – they reason deductively from a particular interpretation of the Bible. They may be faithful believers and good theologians but they do bad science. Being a good scientist and being a good Christian are not mutually exclusive. Good scientists can be faithful believers. Their faith allows them to approach their work inductively, knowing that eventually every truthful path will lead to God. There is no need to discredit the science by starting out deductively. 4. Evolution does not provide an alternative explanation for creation. Atheistic scientists hate the Big Bang model because it opens the door to something they cannot tolerate – a first cause. Stephen Hawking himself has tried to discredit this aspect of his own work. But we old-earth Christians know who the first cause is – God the Father Almighty. Hope you’re enjoying this lovely Hoosier spring. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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6 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | srbaegon | 44627 | ||
Good morning Steve I'm not sure Tim set up a straw man. My own experience has shown that the vast majority of those who reject a literal 24-hour day also reject a literal Adam. I would add that this majority I just described also believes one can earn his way to heaven; that there's no devil and probably no hell; that only bad people would go to hell, but "I" am not that bad; the Bible can't be taken seriously or literally;... In other words, unbelievers. Steve |
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7 | What was infused? | Acts 1:3 | stjones | 44631 | ||
Hi, Steve; Thanks for your comments. But of course, I have to disagree - I'm living proof that it's a straw man. I doubt a literal 24-hour day and accept a literal Adam. And I have a logical, consistent, and (IMO) Biblically-based reason for the distinction. There are grounds for attacking my belief regarding creation days. But an assumption that rejection of Adam's historicity is the inevitable consequence of that belief is not one of them. And I hope you understand that I don't insist on anyone's agreeing with me. Some of my best friends are young-earth Christians. ;-) Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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