Religions, Evolution and related Sciences

[Wishfulthinker580]

Interesting topic, much better suited to a discussion around a campfire or over dinner than an open Internet forum. Too much gets left out and unspoken commonalities aren't understood.

I know what makes sense to me, but I don't really have a desire to throw it out there for others to trample over. I am a scientist at heart and by training, but the thought of vast cosmic emptiness with a speck of a planet where some cosmic accident brought about life doesn't seem right.

Religion doesn't yet have all the cards. Science doesn't yet have all the cards, but we try to understand it the best we can. I just wish we could be nice to each other as we collectively and individually figure it out.

Religion not having all the cards is an opinion..

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

On the contrary, every bit of scientific evidence across the full spectrum of study since the enlightenment points to an ancient Earth. "Well the Bible says something different," is not a counter argument. It is instead a statement of faith, that requires you to set aside your ability to reason and requires disbelief of every bit of three hundred years of accumulated knowledge. To me, that is a very thin reed on which to judge belief. I have no doubt an all knowing God did not intend a Bible to be a 21st century natural history text.

I will be the first to admit neither of us were sitting side by side with Paul and Timothy in that cell, but even a casual reading of Paul illustrates a brilliant educated mind. I am confident he would not have the least issue, other than perhaps one of morality with respect to some of our modern entertainment, with any of the scientific discoveries of mankind to date. I personally think he would marvel at the gift of intellect with which God gifted man and what he had done with it.

It is a fact that the Anglican Church was the first to give credence to the 6000 year old claim regarding the Earth's age. Anglican Arch Bishop James Ussher "calculated" it in 1650 and it gained some credence well into the 18th century because it was added to margin notes of the printed King James Bible. However, it was never part of the Anglican Canon and was largely abandoned by all organized denominations by the early 19th century due to the obvious age of the Earth which was being expanded almost daily through the new study of geology. By the late twentieth century the Anglican Church went so far as to affirm Theistic Evolution formally rejecting the Young Earth belief.

Finally, if you haven't read any of St. Augustine's admonitions to Christians with respect to the allegorical nature of Genesis, I would urge you to do so. His "On Genesis" discusses this specific issue in Book 1 Chapters 18 & 19. It is on my desk as I type. He wrote this multi-volume treatise between 405 - 415 AD. That puts him rather closer to the subject than most.

On Genesis (Works of Saint Augustine)

No other part of the Hebrew Scriptures, aside from the Psalter and sections of the prophet Isaiah, captured the interest and aroused the attention of the early Church as did the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. Augustine of Hippo devoted three treatises to these chapters. The first two...

www.christianbook.com

He was a great believer in knowledge and the positive power of knowledge. This his warning to literalists echoing through the centuries to modern Christians today. We forget, to our peril, that educated believers like Augustine were well educated in the philosophical and scientific discoveries of Greek civilization.

"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for a non-believer to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics [the earth, the sky, the stars]; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn."

St Augustine sees self-inflicted ignorance as a danger to the growth of church. Indeed, in the 5th century he saw it as a existential one. Remember the last great persecutions of Christians by Diocletian and Galerius were only one hundred years before in the 4th century. Such denial of knowledge is equally corrosive today. The goodness of the church and the majesty of God's creation are lost on potential believers by dogma that can not withstand the feeble light of even the most basic analysis. It is like the youthful son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter carefully educated in a rigid fundamentalist church, school, or home taking that first tour of the Field or Natural History Museum only to experience a crisis in faith when St Augustine would instead urge them to celebrate the vast majesty of creation.

His most celebrated work was of course "City of God."

"Well the Bible says something different," is THE argument IF you believe in the Bible.

I disagree with Augustine on the subject. Genesis is not allegorical.

No crisis of faith need be had. Those who lack faith have crises of faith..

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

I'll admit I'm not up on quoting scripture verses. But I do remember something in The Bible about; (paraphrased) '...and GOD gave man the power over the animals.....and that GOD told man he could partake of all the animals but of the closed hoof...'

After Moses had lead 'his people' into the new land/promised land (Israel, perhaps) it was commanded where a specific area and shelter at the base of the mountain was to be constructed and only certain people were allowed to enter. Any unauthorized person would be condemned; (aka killed or exiled, abolished from the "village")

At certain time or times of the year the people were to bring food offerings which the 'celebration' was culminated by the slaughtering of an animal (a sheep or goat) as an offering unto GOD.

Thoughout these same passages there is mention of great light and fire and rolling darkness from/across the sky.

IMO These passages lead credence of the possibility to an extraterrestrial presence.

In today's world AI; those building robots to act, "parrot", resemble humans, are they not playing god?

Next question: dimissing all of the hypotheticals, carbon dating, etc., how can science be dismissed based on the proven facts that: dinosaurs, "cavemen", the "ice age", etc, at various periods through out time never existed?

Look up the vegetarian thing and specifically when man was explicitly told about eating animals. Talking long before Moses. You’re confusing the law with time prior to its giving.

The extraterrestrial argument is played out. It was God, people want to believe in anything but Him.

All creation has existed for roughly 6000 years. God flooded the world in catastrophic fashion. An ice age did happen. “Cavemen” were humans. Dinosaurs existed (alongside people) and have gone extinct like a plethora of other animals.

 

[Muskox]

The earth has hundreds of millions of years of natural history.

The bible catalogs a period of roughly the past 6000 years, as a parable to build your relationship with your creator.

I don't know why people get so wrapped around the axel on this.

Some protestants believe that the Earth is 6000 years old.

At least we believe in the same God.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

The earth has hundreds of millions of years of natural history.

The bible catalogs a period of roughly the past 6000 years, as a parable to build your relationship with your creator.

I don't know why people get so wrapped around the axel on this.

Some protestants believe that the Earth is 6000 years old.

At least we believe in the same God.

Believing what the Bible says, that it is God’s Word and that it’s true is sort of central to being a believer wouldn’t you say? If you pick and choose what to believe you’re saying it’s not true and calling God a liar. A parable? If you can’t make it past the first page without finding a reason to disbelieve I don’t know how you get to saving faith in Christ…

Please point out the hundreds of millions of years in it. You can’t. Like many in this thread you have to disbelieve Genesis and cram in millions of years before the creation account or during the creation account by making it longer than 6 days while also ignoring the genealogies. Man says one thing and God another.

Do we really believe in the same God?

 

[Ray B]

Humans generally perceive the Earth as 3 dimensional and subject to various physical constants and rules. However people such as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan discussed the possibility and even actuality of multiple dimensions where the system of order for the 3 dimensions may not apply to the other dimensions. I wonder if the Bible explains that possibility.

 

[Hogpatrol]

The earth is 6000 years old and I just turned 420 the last full moon.

 

[MS 9x56]

The thing to remember about the bible is, it was written by men not god.

 

[Hogpatrol]

The thing to remember about the bible is, it was written by men not god.

And translated umpteen million times to foster control and suit personal agendas.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Believing what the Bible says, that it is God’s Word and that it’s true is sort of central to being a believer wouldn’t you say? If you pick and choose what to believe you’re saying it’s not true and calling God a liar. A parable? If you can’t make it past the first page without finding a reason to disbelieve I don’t know how you get to saving faith in Christ…

Please point out the hundreds of millions of years in it. You can’t. Like many in this thread you have to disbelieve Genesis and cram in millions of years before the creation account or during the creation account by making it longer than 6 days while also ignoring the genealogies. Man says one thing and God another.

Do we really believe in the same God?

I disagree. Because like many you only comprehend a day being 24 hours, a week being made up of 7 - 24 hour days, a year being 12 - months.

I'll revert to a post I made in this thread:

Time,.... Time,.....
When time began.....When did "time" begin?. How was time measured when time began?.

Man created the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, the years. But What is/was GOD'S time? in creating Earth?

By The Bible's measure a new day starts when darkness turns to light again. Thus at daylight a day begins then the daylight turns to darkness. The day ends and a new day begins when the darkness turns to light again. There is no man made/proclaimed midnight by which one day ends and another begins.

By our current human time standards GOD'S 6 days could have been registered in millenials.

Hypothetically speaking: when the great asteroid(s) hit the earth it (they) knocked the earth out of its original orbit into its current orbit changing earth's time; the lengths of daylight and darkness.

I don’t ignore the genealogies, I question that man's lack of time comparison to GOD's time in creating the earth.

The Earth is billions of years old.
GOD created the earth in 6 days, 6000 years ago.

 

[Ridge Runner]

The thing to remember about the bible is, it was written by men not god.

What @Hogpatrol said.

And translated umpteen million times to foster control and suit personal agendas.

Until King James. Ordered the Bible translated so that everyone could read and understand it.

Even then it was based on the mutual comprehension and opt-ed of translation of the words then into compreshensiable grammatical language.

 

[Red Leg]

Believing what the Bible says, that it is God’s Word and that it’s true is sort of central to being a believer wouldn’t you say? If you pick and choose what to believe you’re saying it’s not true and calling God a liar. A parable? If you can’t make it past the first page without finding a reason to disbelieve I don’t know how you get to saving faith in Christ…

Please point out the hundreds of millions of years in it. You can’t. Like many in this thread you have to disbelieve Genesis and cram in millions of years before the creation account or during the creation account by making it longer than 6 days while also ignoring the genealogies. Man says one thing and God another.

Do we really believe in the same God?

The debate always returns to this doesn't it - to the implied - I'm a better Christian than you.

I never called God a liar. I merely reject the time scale man, not God, created to try and define something they had no means of comprehending. I used St. Augustine as the earliest example of whom I am aware who was fully cognizant of this difference between cultural stories inspired by God's work and known truth. I think most would consider St. Augustine a very good Christian indeed, and he was far, far closer to the events described than anyone typing in this discussion.

Of course I can't point to the true age of the universe in the Bible because the human beings who wrote that story had no concept of it. That does nothing to change the facts of the age of this planet, the length of man's occupation of it, or the allegorical beauty that is at the heart of the creation story itself. There is no conflict in my mind with regard to those parallel truths. I would add most Christian denominations would have no argument with that conclusion.

You can believe anything you wish and just as unquestionably as you are comfortable doing so. I would simply encourage you to be cautious about too much finger pointing and self-assurance of your superior understanding of our shared faith.

You really should look into that heretical St. Augustine fellow.

 

[Ray B]

For those who believe in the Bible's every word's literal interpretation I'll skip the question of how many minutes in the first seven days of planet Earth and point to a simpler quandary. Joshua 10 12-14 discusses an event that viewed from 4th - 10th century BC would cause little concern, but given present understanding of the universe causes one to think that maybe things didn't happen exactly as written.