Oh, thanks King Prout, for clearing that problem up for me! Yet notwithstanding your having done so, may I say this particular line of reasoning makes absolutely no sense to me at all in the first place?
How could any Christian, of whatever denomination, say that our God on Whom salvation absolutely depends, "lies???" This makes no sense to me at all. FWIW.
*shrugs*
Thanks for the excellent conversation, KP.
The basic Genesis story predates the existence of the Hebrews anyway. It's all "Antedeluvian" (in the old Biblical dating scheme) for one thing, and with the whole world destroyed, it's really hard to go back and secure adequate witnesses.
you are welcome, though i suspect I didn't state my point clearly enough. It is not that the particular breed of believer would say that God lies, but that "God lies" is, for them, an inescapeable corollary of the evidence indicating what science says it does. So they deny that the evidence says what science says it does, out of theological necessity.
All because of their (to my eye) false dilemma.
now - a semi-related tangential issue: take a look at "massive"
"massive" is a computer program developed to automatically simulate extremely large numbers of massed INDIVIDUAL combatants for the battle scenes of the Lord of the Rings.
for each species or race, several ranges of physical and behavioral characteristics were developed.
Each individual simulant was given a randomly selected value in each range. These mixed-bag values were intended to create variance between the movement speeds and styles of the combatants, so that the simulants looked and moved like live extras instead of a bunch of, well, computer-generated simulants.
But... it generated a surprise side effect: some of the simulants FLED the battlefield. The programmers were quite surprised by this behavior. But they let it stay, as it adds a little more realism to things.
Now, I will not say that this is an example of "free will"
What I will propose is that this is an example of semi-random assemblages of ranges of standardized components producing unanticipated and apparently "designed" or intended results.
I will also go so far as to wonder... If this illusion of free will derives from combinations of basic elements, what other behaviors which we *do* call free will are in fact just as illusory?
One of the many problems HUMAN beings must deal with is that at no time is it possible for us the know "what something IS'.
We can only characterize. We cannot define the totality of anything.
We can only compare what we know of one thing to another thing.
When God Says "Let there be Light".
We automatically think He was speaking of the sun.
He said LIGHT.
We still do not know what LIGHT is.
Does that mean God Lied???
God knows everthing completely. When He speaks of the totality of something we have no way to Compare His statement to anything else we know.
Jesus said, "I am the Truth......"
We have been asking the same question since Pilot asked it. Are we closer to an answer or do we just say, "He lied"?
I would be most careful when claiming God "Lied". You and I don't know the whole story YET. We must still compare.