I doubt it very much.
As a Christian do you also agree with the vatican "astrophysisist" that God did not design you? I suspect he calls himself a "Christian" too.
Depends on what you mean by "design." If you mean He drew up precise plans of what man would look like, and then poofed it into existence, no. Rather, God designed the evolutionary process that eventually led to Man. He designed it in the same sense a programmer "designes" a program that is the outcome of an evolutionary algorithm he sets up.
I agree, the astrophysicist's statement was poorly worded, but I suspect he means what I mean above.
The Christian knows that death entered the world by one man's sin, even as Paul writes in the book of Romans. Do you, as Christian believe this?
Yes.
The finger of God wrote in tablets of stone the Law known to us as the ten commandments. In the writing of that Law the finger of God wrote that "...in six days the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is." This resides in direct opposition to premise of millions of years of an evolutionary path from molecules to man.
I don't believe He meant the six days to be literal, human days. A literal interpretation of this passage would fly in the face of not only evolutionary science, but geology, physics, astronomy, and about half a dozen other fields.
As a Christian, who in your opinion is right -- the Cretaor who designed it all in the beginning or today's speculators who clearly were not?
Both are right, modern scientists as well as the authors of the Torah. It is the Biblical literalists who are mistaken. God doesn't lie either in his Word or his creation, but man's interpretation of the Word is frequently wrong.
Jesus Christ without exception endorsed the writings of Moses as true.
Yes, and I accept them as true as well. Jesus never, however, said that every single verse was intented to be taken literally. Nor did he say that the authors of the Torah didn't use metaphor and allegory.
Genesis is the first book containing the writings of Moses. Do you, as a Christian have a problem with Christ's affirmation of the writings of Moses?
Nope.
Jesus Christ, speaking specifically in the context of man, declared that He who made them in the beginning made the male and female. As a Christian, please square the words of Jesus Christ -- the Creator Himself, with the "solid science" of evolution that you believe to be true.
Well, you as a Biblical literalist should have just as much trouble squaring it as I do, for if you take Genesis literally, human beings were not created in the beginning. They came on the 6th day.
Obviously, therefore, Jesus did not mean that males and females were present at the very beginning of creation. He was talking about the beginning of the human race, and indeed, both males and females were present when the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago.
One of the best commentaries on the "six days of creation" that I've seen is to be found in Leon Kass's book The Beginning of Wisdom - Reading Genesis. Too long to quote, but well worth reading. He makes clear the symbolism of "six days."
Doubt what you like. That is your right. You just need to mingle with more evolutionary scientists who make at least some attempt at being intellectually honest. Perhaps the source of your doubt is that you do not mingle with enough of intellectually honest evolutionary scientists regularly?
(Q): As a Christian do you also agree with the vatican "astrophysisist" that God did not design you? I suspect he calls himself a "Christian" too. (A): Depends on what you mean by "design." If you mean He drew up precise plans of what man would look like, and then poofed it into existence, no.
You are correct and in agreement with Scripture to say that man was not “poofed” into existence. God indeed had a pre-conceived design for man that did not depend upon the design of anything else God created in order to design man. What part about “…God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen 1:27) do you find most difficult for you to accept? Seems you might have a problem accepting that God did not use an animal as His model for a predicate design, but instead chose to use Himself?
If you think Genesis 1 cannot be taken literally, how about Genesis 5:1 – “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.” Or how about Genesis 9:6 where it says: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.” Need I go on?
Or when David writes in Psalm 139:13, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb,” what design for man do propose he used in David’s case, if in your mind it has any possibility of differing from the image of God? We could ask Him, after all “… it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” (Psalm 100:3).
Rather, God designed the evolutionary process that eventually led to Man.
Please reconcile the evolutionary contention with the contrasting statement found in Gen 1:27 above, and the fact that Christ, the Creator, himself, as much as quotes this very fact as noted Matthew 19:4?
I agree, the astrophysicist's statement was poorly worded, but I suspect he means what I mean above.
“Poorly worded?” It was parroting exactly of that kind of sloppy thinking that caused the early Roman church leaders to buy into the line peddled by the scientifically fashionable Hellenists of their day who sold them on the notions of geo-centrism of the universe and flat-earth fallacies that post-Reformation scientific inquiry later roundly debunked. I’m sure those members of the early church who bought the “scientific” falsehoods of their time were concerned with how their evangelical outreach was being perceived, even as you are.
(Q):The Christian knows that death entered the world by one man's sin, even as Paul writes in the book of Romans. Do you, as Christian believe this? (A)Yes.
Evolutionary premise contends that death has always been a part of life in this universe. Fossils allegedly millions of years older than the supposed first appearance of man in Africa – as you claimed in your post – manifest not only death but in many instances show evidence of disease, decay, and physical deformation. If death came by one man’s sin, as we agree, please explain how death and affliction are clearly present at a time when by your own reckoning man is not supposed to even be in existence, let alone committing any manner of first sin? Please use scripture in your answer to back up your statements if possible.
I don't believe He meant the six days to be literal, human days. A literal interpretation of this passage would fly in the face of not only evolutionary science, but geology, physics, astronomy, and about half a dozen other fields.
Since we are talking about what it is that you happen to believe, are the ten commandments the Law as God wrote it or are they merely ten suggestions peppered in places with allegory? Do you also pick and choose which commandments you happen to believe God means for you to take literally and which ones He supposedly doesn’t?
The word for “day” as used in the Exodus 20:11, which I quoted from the ten commandments, is the same word used in Genesis 1 to describe each day of Creation --- even and as it is used in every other place in the Hebrew Scripture in the literal context and usage of the word, “day.” It is the same word the finger of God used to write the word, “day(s)”, in the tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18). In each usage the word is a fixed unit of time corresponding to evening and morning for a typical 24-hour day. Can you show me in the Hebrew Scripture where it is used differently?
(Q): As a Christian, who in your opinion is right -- the Creator who designed it all in the beginning or today's speculators who clearly were not? (A): Both are right, modern scientists as well as the authors of the Torah. It is the Biblical literalists who are mistaken. God doesn't lie either in his Word or his creation, but man's interpretation of the Word is frequently wrong.
Correct you are: God does not lie. His Word is truth -- and his commandments are true. What I find most amazing sometimes is how Christians readily believe Christ did miracles here on Earth and that He literally died on the cross and rose from the dead, but as the Creator of the universe He could not possibly have created the universe in six literal days although the finger of God Himself wrote so quite plainly, because man desires to say otherwise. C’mon, Curiosity, why do you feel compelled to play word games? Will you exchange the vain imaginations of man for the truth of God? As scientists, we all have the same testable physical evidence. An evolutionist has no more physical evidence to study than does a creationist. Physical evidence simply does not support the evolutionary premise.
Famous evolutionary geologists, and paleontologists have plainly admitted it, although they continue to cling to their faith in the evolutionary premise, despite the evidence to the contrary. As far as they are concerned the evolutionary premise is all they’ve got, because it is all they want to have – not because the evidence in any way substantiates their premise. Physical evidence does not contradict the creationist’s premise. Most evolutionists find this point to be particularly galling.
Jesus Christ without exception endorsed the writings of Moses as true…. Yes, and I accept them as true as well. Jesus never, however, said that every single verse was intended to be taken literally. Nor did he say that the authors of the Torah didn't use metaphor and allegory.
Are you’re now trying to tell me that He had to? You accept the writings of Moses as true just not literally true – and neither did Christ, is that it? And you read this in Scripture where exactly? Christ, the Creator of the universe, in prayer to His Father declared, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17:17) --- but by your preference only sometimes, right? In your mind are the ten commandments the Law, or is God merely writing in an allegorical sense? We had a US president once who was profoundly confused about the meaning of the word “is.” It appears that as a Christian you are parsing the meaning of the word, “truth,” to the point of your own personal confusion -- and as only Satan the author of confusion would have it, I might add.
(Q) Genesis is the first book containing the writings of Moses. Do you, as a Christian have a problem with Christ's affirmation of the writings of Moses? (A)Nope.
Actually, I think you do. And not only with the writings of Moses.
(Q)”Jesus Christ, speaking specifically in the context of man, declared that He who made them in the beginning made the male and female. As a Christian, please square the words of Jesus Christ -- the Creator Himself, with the "solid science" of evolution that you believe to be true." (A): Well, you as a Biblical literalist should have just as much trouble squaring it as I do, for if you take Genesis literally, human beings were not created in the beginning. They came on the 6th day.
I see. As I just said you don’t only have a problem with the writings of Moses. You do have a problem with what Christ said after all. Your objection is not so much with me, or other literalists, as you term us. Your problem is with the words of Christ, Himself. But, you see, I already knew that. It is Christ who says “at the beginning.” But then, unlike you, or I, or any of today’s scientists, He was there at the beginning.
I have no difficulty at all taking Christ at His word, either as a scientist or as a Christian. Jesus Christ is the Creator of the Universe and all that is in it – including man. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3).
Obviously, therefore, Jesus did not mean that males and females were present at the very beginning of creation. He was talking about the beginning of the human race, and indeed, both males and females were present when the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago.
Christ refers to the Creation as “the beginning.” John 1 refers to the Creation as “the beginning.” Genesis 1 starts, “In the beginning…” And you, who calls himself a Christian, have a problem with that? Christ didn’t know what He was talking about, Moses didn’t know what he was talking about, and St. John didn’t know what he was talking about -- is that it? I take it that you know something Christ Himself does not know about how He created man or that He was somehow just incapable of getting the story straight to satisfy the vain imaginations of man? But by contrast unregenerate imperfect man knows what he’s talking about in spite of the fact that at best he has only 3.5 lbs of grey mater to conceptualize this universe, whose perspective at best merely “sees through a glass darkly,” whose “truth” is an ever moving target, and as the natural, sinful man he is, is afflicted with the tendency to be at odds with his Creator? “Let God be true and every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4)
What is sadly obvious is that like those who compromised with Hellenists of the past you too have a problem taking Christ at his Word and the Scriptures at face value for fear that unregenerate man, and possibly the popular “scientific” MSM will somehow think less of you – and Conservatism, if you don’t. As anyone who has been a Conservative for any respectable amount of time knows Conservatism never needed the accolades of the MSM – political, scientific, religious or otherwise in any of its manifestations to be successful. In fact conservatism has transcended the popular media, and it is the popular media who are in decline. Conservatism is winning in the arena of ideas.
Similarly, the real and honest study of science will trump what is left of fashionably popular evolutionary approaches and explanations regarding matters of science. Why should the true pursuit of science have anything to fear from what the High Priests of Darwinism think together with their self-validating love affair with an increasingly incestuous and discredited MSM? Evolution is well on its way to a very certain and embarrassing scientific shellacking. Are you prepared to be among to theosophic compromisers who like that Vatican “astrophysisist” will be left holding the flat-earth bag of yesterday’s Hellenists, even as more readily testable and observable science continues to pass you by, along with your like-minded albeit atheistic allies?