NWT,
What does the fall of man have to do with my saying the earth is more than 10,000 years old? Lilly
Creation scientist resources
by hooberus 48 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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New Worldly Translation
Narkissos - The definition of dogma is a principle taught or advanced for belief, which was the aim of the writers of scripture. Unfortunately the contemporary meaning of the word has taken on a more rigid connotation.
I think it was very clear in my original post what part of scripture depends on early Genesis. If you take the Adam and Eve story as literal then the whole of scripture depends on it as it recounts how man fell into sin and the later need for a ransom saviour. If you don't take the story in Genesis as fact then you have to invent another story of your own, or somebody else's making, in it's place. It's easy to take bible passages in retrospect but at the time they were viewed as fact and while centuries later much of Judaism viewed them as allegorical, Jewish apocrypha still held to the old view and Christianity and it's writers took their doctrine from the apocrypha. That's why the Jews and the Christians view of what the messianic role was supposed to be was so different. The original point was about evolution and evolution says nothing about the concept of sin, it's purely a biological process and indifferent to any anthropic principles people care to add on to it.There is such a thing as liberal Christianity, which welcomes Bible criticism, and it is not as inconsistent as you may think
Could you expand on that Narkissos and how it isn't inconsistent. I'd appreciate it because it genuinely confuses me. If you take a pick and mix attitude to the bible why pick any of it at all? Is it purely a self serving excercise to pick the bits you like the sound of and leave out the rest? You're using your own contemporary criteria for choosing your moral and ethical code. If their was anything genuinely original in OT or NT writings about moral philosophy or ethics there could be some argument for this, but there isn't.
Lovelil - I never mentioned anything about the age of the Earth and you've dodged the question. The question was how you reconcile belief in evolution with religious belief?
Onacruse - Thanks for the grammatical correction. I knew that sentence didn't sound quite right but I couldn't think how to rearrange the words to sound better.
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stillajwexelder
and anyway, one of the most give up in disgust comments I ever heard was a person when challenged about fossils (irrefutable evidence by the way - go to the Grand Canyon sometime) . The reply was " Satan put the fossils there".
No arguing with comments like that. I challenge you to read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - with an open mind if you can
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hillary_step
DanTheMan,
hooberus, you once said on this board that the question of "who created the creator" is irrelevant because Creationist framework allows for an uncreated god...is this how you would still answer this question?
Hooberus is seems, has been in the privy for six days and still no creation. HS
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lovelylil
NWT,
I will try to answer how I can reconcile belief in God with belief in evolution, even though I know it will not sit well with some of my fellow Christians.
In the Bible, many things were written not to be taken literally but to explain complex things to an ancient world in as simple a way possible. While Genesis gives an account of the creative days and the creation of the first man and women, it does not go into specific details of exactly HOW God created all things. For the creation of the world it simply states God created light, waters, vegetation, beasts, etc. and for man it says he was formed out of dust. Now forming Man from dust can be taken two ways: one way it could mean God literally picked up dust and formed the man from it sort of like a sculpter forms things from clay OR it very well could simply mean the compounds or elements found in the earth were used to create man. And most scientists would agree that the 2nd would be correct. Had God specifically had the OT writers write in details how he created everything, or what methods he used, not only would that ancient nation not be able to understand it, even today we would probably not be able to understand it. That is why the Genesis account is not a scientific textbook but rather more like a poetic description of God's intentions in creating the universe.
As far as evolution, God is all powerful and is not limited like we are by space and time. Therefore, he could very well have chosen the "mechanism" of evolution to create you and I and everything else. Man has "evolved" intellectually now to the point where he can understand these things better than when the Genesis account was written, but I don't see any reason why believing in the mechanism of evolution would mean I have to automatically reject God. I do firmly believe that God is the origin of all life and set everything in motion, and that evolution (a product of his design) took up where he left off.
Just to let you know, there are many old earth creationists (myself included) and we are not trying to water down belief in God at all or be apologetics. But we simply cannot deny the extraordinary evidence put forth by scientists regarding the age of the earth and evolution.
I want to make only one more point about the Bible. Most Bible believers are under the impression that you can trace mankinds lineage (all the generations specifically) back to Adam and Eve and know almost exactly how old man is. However, there are two things to consider; one, we have no exact date for the creation of Adam or Eve, so we do not have the exact starting point of mankind. And second, in the OT times it was not unusual for the term "son" to be applied to grandsons or even great-grandsons. Thefore many generations could have been skipped in the OT record. The generations that were included in the Bible were the ones most important for expressing the writers points and the ones closet to and directly linked within a few generations to the Messiah. Thus man can be much older than 6,000 or so years.
I hope I answered your question. Lilly
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New Worldly Translation
Lovelylil - Thankyou for that clear and concise explanation. I cannot disagree with anything you wrote, although that's not my understanding of how evolution works I can't discount your viewpoint. I just had another question if that's ok? Do you believe in Christs redemptive factor, and if so why was this needed?
I wouldn't ask you to reject your belief in God as the creation of the universe is something no-one can answer, so maybe a creator god did make it. The concept of God you put forward though is nowhere to be found in the OT or the NT, so I would ask why you accept the bible, or parts of it, to guide you?
The NT writers viewed the OT scriptures as literal and this therefore must have influenced their writings. In fact a non-literal viewpoint of scripture wasn't put forward till Augustine in the 4th century. If you accept the NT scriptures you must also accept the writers influences and thought process which was a literal view of scripture. -
Clam
" Satan put the fossils there".
LOL Brilliant. I've never heard that one. At least it's good to hear that Satan and the demons are doing something that compliments their powers and undoubted imagination. I never could understand why they'd be so trivial as to hide in second hand goods. If they can help corroborate the fossil record why can't they mess up the Borg's printing presses?
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Narkissos
I think it was very clear in my original post what part of scripture depends on early Genesis. If you take the Adam and Eve story as literal then the whole of scripture depends on it as it recounts how man fell into sin and the later need for a ransom saviour.
I didn't mean you were unclear, I meant you were wrong.
Genesis as it stands may be one of the latest parts of the Torah; the idea that "man fell into sin" and the "need for a ransom saviour" are not the point of Genesis 2--3, which btw plays little role if any in the rest of the OT. Redemption (which is broader than "ransom") is an integral part of the NT, but its "need" is seldom related to the Adam story; when Paul happens to draw a parallel between Adam and Christ (1 Corinthians 15; Romans 5) he treats them as two contrasting archetypes for "mankind". Which implies a mythical dimension for both, whether they are historical characters or not.
Iow you can hardly summarise the Bible (or even classical Christian theology) by a popular formula such as "Jesus is the solution to the Adam problem". There is more to "Adam" than a problem, and there is more to "Jesus" than a solution.
If you don't take the story in Genesis as fact then you have to invent another story of your own, or somebody else's making, in it's place.
I agree with you that religion cannot survive in a non-sectarian way without integrating contemporary cosmology / anthropology (at least in its popular versions). When its stories and those of society at large become mutually exclusive, it can only survive as a cult.
This implies a hermeneutical work, a fresh reading of the older stories, as well as a constant rethinking of the theological paradigms. This is exactly what liberal theology is about. And, I think, what creative theology was always about.
It's easy to take bible passages in retrospect but at the time they were viewed as fact and while centuries later much of Judaism viewed them as allegorical, Jewish apocrypha still held to the old view and Christianity and it's writers took their doctrine from the apocrypha. That's why the Jews and the Christians view of what the messianic role was supposed to be was so different.
I submit that there were many ways to understand a story even back then. Actually modernity seems to have a harder time in this respect. Creative storytellers hardly view their own stories as "fact".
The original point was about evolution and evolution says nothing about the concept of sin, it's purely a biological process and indifferent to any anthropic principles people care to add on to it.
Or, the concept of "sin" has to be reinterpreted in a non-biological way. This affects more a certain Augustinian representation of "original sin" than the Bible texts themselves btw.
Could you expand on that Narkissos and how it isn't inconsistent. I'd appreciate it because it genuinely confuses me. If you take a pick and mix attitude to the bible why pick any of it at all? Is it purely a self serving excercise to pick the bits you like the sound of and leave out the rest? You're using your own contemporary criteria for choosing your moral and ethical code. If their was anything genuinely original in OT or NT writings about moral philosophy or ethics there could be some argument for this, but there isn't.
I think the deepest principle of liberal theology is historical: there is no everlasting authority whatsoever; what now appears as an authority once was a fresh, controversial, challenged invention. But it was never a creatio ex nihilo either. Religio is re-legere, re-reading the old books from an ever new perspective.
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wozadummy
The bugs only started to each other after Eve stuffed up ,it's all her fault ,and Adam joined her, and great white sharks have only got those big teeth because back in Adam & Eve's day the kelp was bigger back then and then it got smaller and the sharks had to eat meat then coz the kelp is small now ,and in the new system all will be restored and everything will not eat each other and we'll all eat vegetation that does'nt scream with pain coz god said there will be no more pain and dying ,and I want a lion like that little girl in the brochure ...I do!
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New Worldly Translation
Thanks for that reply Narkissos. It's very interesting about the role of Genesis in scripture. Maybe I was too influenced by the JW concept of the story. What proof can you supply though that Paul's understanding of Adam as the reason for original sin was mythical in nature. Paul's writings are largely preternatural but I know of no authority that says Paul viewed any of his doctrine as mythical in nature. Semantically why would Paul say 'sin entered into the world through one man', rather than a more general wording. Both statements would have the same sense but one is specifically referencing the Genesis story the other would be a more general concept. Whether Adam was an actual man or the image of all mankind the exegesis of the story is still the same; that man fell into sin and needs a redeemer. I have difficulty fitting this idea with evolutionary biology and the idea that God started it all off knowing it would end with us. There are ramifications for free will if God has perfect precognition of future events and an inevitability for the fall of man. Also if there is no forbidden fruit and expulsion from the garden what did man do that was inherently sinful during the millions of years of evolution?
It seems from your explanation liberal theology is more a philosophy than anything else. That there is some mystical truth and deep meaning in old texts and that this is constantly revised based on our current understanding. I guess I just have a hard time understanding why you would keep holding on to an ever shortening piece of rope. Although, if I'm understanding correctly, it could mean that christian thinking is actually going full circle and returning to it's ultimate paganistic roots where nature was the principle informant on theology.