Thus we see the problem with creationism. Once a particular interpretation of scripture is accepted as ‘the word of God’ then how could ANY amount of evidence ever contradict it?
Believing that the creation of the natural world utilized natural means, and using science to discover those processes whereby stars and elements and planets form - is not a denial that God can and does perform miracles.
Do you suppose miracles can be explained by science?
Again with the “claims” garbage (move over St. Peter, and hand those keys to metmom). Is the Pope, who said evolution was “a fact that enriches our understanding of life and being and such” also only “claiming” to be a Christian? Do you think he similarly rejects miraculous involvement of God in the world?
And how are scientists not geocentrists when they talk about sunrise and sunset? What about the celestial sphere that astronomers constantly refer to? Don't tell me that they actually believe that we are in the center of a sphere that the stars are all fixed to.
Anything in Scripture that is written as a narrative account is rightly read that way. Jesus Himself referred to the creation account, the creation of Adam and Eve, and the Flood as actual events.
Did He lie and misrepresent those events as fact instead of allegory to those who heard Him? Or was He telling the truth?
Sure it is. It is putting Scripture subservient to man's interpretation of data as observed from man's perspective, which is only one limited point of view.
Is the Pope, who said evolution was “a fact that enriches our understanding of life and being and such” also only “claiming” to be a Christian?
Are you saying that the Pope is infallible? And what if a different Pope make a different statement? Then who's right?
And did not the Pope also say, at the same time, that evolution did not answer all questions? “Above all it does not answer the great philosophical question, ‘Where does everything come from?’” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/ )
That statement (“where does everything come from?”) is as quintessential a Creationist statement as the Pontiff could possibly utter. Yet you vilify Creationists and attempt to isolate them from Christianity with malignant aspersions unexplainable in the degree of their malice and villainy. If you hold Creationists in contempt, then you hold Pope Benedict, and all Christians, in contempt. Even the very unconventional Christian Thomas Jefferson believed that the Judeo-Christian God created Mankind and the Universe.
”Believing that the creation of the natural world utilized natural means, and using science to discover those processes whereby stars and elements and planets form - is not a denial that God can and does perform miracles.”
Now wait a moment . . . is it the creation of the natural world, or is it the formational processes of stars, elements, and planets that Science explains? My! how you love to scramble and mix the terms you use in your argumentation. I was twenty-eight year’s age before Science figured out there was a beginning. Jefferson knew the fact 140 years earlier (and Adams even earlier). The Hebrew people knew it back to a time incalculable by me. So, tell me allmendream, how was Mankind Created? The Universe (the heaven and the earth)? Or, even simply, water?
The Christians of this forum don’t object to “natural processes.” They object, vehemently, to the intense fanatics who claim that those “natural processes” prove that; 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.
If you waged war against those miscreants with the evangelical zeal you assail your Christian brethren, you might discover a more sympathetic audience in this forum. As it is, they simply do not believe your expressions of sincerity.
metmom:
So, amd, please explain why the virgin birth and the resurrection are acceptable things to believe in in contradiction to science, but the creation account isn’t.
Thank you, ZC, for putting it so succinctly.
YHAOS:
The Hebrew people knew it back to a time incalculable by me. So, tell me allmendream, how was Mankind Created? The Universe (the heaven and the earth)? Or, even simply, water?
Notice the inability to answer?