Religious Views On Evolution

hoghead1 said:
Then you didn't have very solid doctrines, to start with.
Where is that rejected? The Bible presents a highly anthropomorphic of God.
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Occasionally, but not frequently.

Jer. 23:23-24 speaks of God's omnipresence. Now if creation was something totally foreign to God, then God could not be omnipresent. I Cor. 15:28, plus the incarnation, suggest the universe e is the body of God.<<

How can the universe be foreign to its Creator? How does I Cor 15:18 and the incarnation suggest the universe is the body of God. The incarnation teaches that God became a man to save His children. I C or 15:28 is about the future.


Yes, we should presume the same holds for God. Otherwise, it makes no sense to speak of God's consciousness. There needs to be an analogy between ourselves and God; otherwise, we can know nothing about God.
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There is more than an analogy between man and God. That is what being made in His image and likeness is about.

I pointed this out before. I view the universe as the body of God and so I have no trouble thinking of God as the biggest animal, the biggest organism that there is.
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God is not an animal. He is Spirit.
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Devils' Advocate said:
Okay. So how did science come up with those numbers. Dart board? Random number generator? Ouija board? Inquiring minds want to know!
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They date rocks but the dating methods they use have some serious flaws. Also they can only date the rocks they have , which are limited to earth and the moon, and those rocks do not 14 billion years.
 
The dating methods do use rocks, amongst other things. The prime one for the universe is the speed of light. We know how far light travels in a year. We measure how far we can see and divide that number by the speed of light. Which equals time.

Technically the Universe may be older than we think because we cannot see any further than light has travelled since the Big Bang. There may be more universe beyond what we can see. It could be older, but not younger.

As an aside, we do have rocks much, much older than the earth and the moon. They fall from the sky. Rocks from the depths of space that are far, far older than ours.
 
shunyadragon said:
I gave sufficient citations that Augustine was not an exception, but gave allegorical meanings as well as literal, with an emphasis of the timeless nature of God,
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That is the proper way to look at Scripture.

and Creation was a single event in time.
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But that event took 6 days.

By the time of Calvin the sun was not the center of the universe, and the facts of astronomy could no longer be denied, but he did believe in a literal six day Creation, and the world flood. This trend does indicate that progressively the advances in science forces alternate interpretations,
Do you have an example of something science has proved that alters an interpretation of the Bible? Nothing science proves will contradict what the Bible says.

but the beliefs of the authors of the NT, and the church fathers who established the doctrines and dogmas based on a literal Genesis makes the negating this view difficult and contradictory among Christians. This is where the progressive Revelation over time resolves these contradictory issues, and the Revelation of the Baha'i Faith. Literal scripture interpretation of religions, including the Baha'i scriptures, must be interpreted and understood in the light of the evolving nature of science. The problem remains with older religions is that attempts to change bring divisions, and contradictions within the faithful, and the the lack of guidance in the modern world.
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There are no contradictory issues. There is only contradictory interpretations. Time does not change truth.
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Devils' Advocate said:
The dating methods do use rocks, amongst other things. The prime one for the universe is the speed of light. We know how far light travels in a year. We measure how far we can see and divide that number by the speed of light. Which equals time.
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When God said "let the be light" The complete universe had light. Even if you don't accept that, it will not take the light of the sun billions of years to get to earth.

Technically the Universe may be older than we think because we cannot see any further than light has travelled since the Big Bang. There may be more universe beyond what we can see. It could be older, but not younger.<<

You assume that parts of the universe did not have light when God created the sun.

As an aside, we do have rocks much, much older than the earth and the moon. They fall from the sky. Rocks from the depths of space that are far, far older than ours.
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That may be but you sill have a dating system based on several assumptions, which make the dates unreliable.
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wil said:
So, omega.... are you saying you believe the earth and universe and all to have been created 6k years ago and in 6 days?... literally?

Or are you simply saying that is what the allegory in the bible says?
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I am saying the Bible doesn't say how old the earth is. Since it does say the universe was created in 6 day, I have no reason to think an omnipotent God could not done in 6 seconds if He chose to. I also believe that in the literal there is an allegory.
 
omega2xx said:
Even if you don't accept that, it will not take the light of the sun billions of years to get to earth.
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Hmmm. Have they.changed the science books?

Sunlight travels at the speed of light. Photons emitted from the surface of the Sun need to travel across the vacuum of space to reach our eyes. The short answer is that it takes sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.
 
omega2xx said:
God did not inspire non-truth for us to believe in. Name one myth in the Bible and tell how you know it is a myth.
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Name one event in the Bible and tell me how you KNOW it is not a myth. As is so often the case on these forums, your logic is flawed. You start with an a priori statement and then state that all that follows is correct. You do not know and can not prove the initial statement is correct however. You may believe it is true. But you can not know it. Since your initial statement is suspect everything you build on top of it is also suspect.

omega2xx said:
When God said "let the be light" The complete universe had light. Even if you don't accept that, it will not take the light of the sun billions of years to get to earth.
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This statement is confusing. I'm not sure you understand the process I was attempting to explain. I was attempting to explain how we know the universe is at least 14 odd billion years old. The earth is not that old. The universe was around 9 ½ billion years already when our solar system, including the earth, began to form.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
Name one event in the Bible and tell me how you KNOW it is not a myth.
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I ask first. You answer my question, which you can't do, then I will answer yours.

As is so often the case on these forums, your logic is flawed.
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What qualifies you to be the final judge on what is logical?


You start with an a priori statement and then state that all that follows is correct.
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I do no such thing. I claim that all of the Bible is inspired by God thus making it inerrant.

You do not know and can not prove the initial statement is correct however. You may believe it is true. But you can not know it.
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That's basically right, but you can't prove it is not right. Spiritual truths cannot be proved. You accept what you believe the same way I accept what I believe---by faith alone.

Since your initial statement is suspect everything you build on top of it is also suspect.
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Prove it is suspect. That is what those who do not understand the Bible believe by faith alone.

This statement is confusing. I'm not sure you understand the process I was attempting to explain. I was attempting to explain how we know the universe is at least 14 odd billion years old. The earth is not that old. The universe was around 9 ½ billion years already when our solar system, including the earth, began to form.
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You need to do some research on radio metric dating from a site with Christian scientists.
 
DA, wil, could you please stop engaging? He is only debating, he hasn't said anything of substance and he never will. You both know he can keep going for as long as you can.
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
DA, wil, could you please stop engaging? He is only debating, he hasn't said anything of substance and he never will. You both know he can keep going for as long as you can.
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Let me assure you you do not have the ability to know my motives. You make statement like that because you can't defend your views on evolution.
You are also wrong about me continuing. I can keep going but I wont. A soon as they or you, if you are interested, keep avoiding answering my questions, I will move on. I will make it simple for you. Give me one example of a mutation being the mechanism for a change of species.

I predict you will not be able to, so you will run away, insult me, say I don't understand science or all 3.

Have a nice day.
 
Right. Sopund scholarship is the
Thomas said:
OK. When it comes to your opinion v tradition and sound scholarship, I'll go with the latter.
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Right. Sound scholarship is the only reliable way of determining the truth. Some times it is hard to determine if the scholar is sound.
 
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