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To: GodGunsGuts

Christianity cannot be reconciled with Evolution.

The Bible teaches us that death entered the world with Adam’s sin. Therefore, nothing died before Adam doomed the creation.


128 posted on 07/31/2007 2:32:20 PM PDT by pacelvi (Islam is the acid that will dissolve the nation-state and led to the total breakdown of civilization)
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To: pacelvi

==Christianity cannot be reconciled with Evolution.

Very true.


129 posted on 07/31/2007 2:37:32 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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To: pacelvi
Christianity cannot be reconciled with Evolution.

I can understand the attractiveness of this position. It gives you the ability to just dispense with the debate. But what I don't understand is, if religion and science cannot be reconciled, why the tremendous effort to do so?
136 posted on 07/31/2007 3:34:19 PM PDT by mutley
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To: pacelvi
The Bible teaches us that death entered the world with Adam’s sin. Therefore, nothing died before Adam doomed the creation.

Then where did all the bones come from? There are far far too many to have all been alive at the same time.

Look at just how think a limestone deposit can be, every shell in it belonged to a critter that needed access to water, and couldn't survive having a few hundred yards of his fellows stacked on top of him!

147 posted on 07/31/2007 4:17:48 PM PDT by null and void (Whale oil: The carbon neutral, renewable petroleum alternative)
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To: pacelvi
The Bible teaches us that death entered the world with Adam’s sin. Therefore, nothing died before Adam doomed the creation.

Maybe the bible is wrong: certainly the billions of fossils that have been found all appear to be dead.

152 posted on 07/31/2007 5:26:11 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: pacelvi
Christianity cannot be reconciled with Evolution. The Bible teaches us that death entered the world with Adam’s sin. Therefore, nothing died before Adam doomed the creation.

Your Bible-fu is weak. I will deftly parry it then deliver a stunning riposte.

1. "Death entered the world with Adam's sin." You are paraphrasing Paul, who wrote, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned--" (Romans 5:12, ESV). Paul was a disciple of the Risen Christ, familiar with His teachings. And Christ was not concerned with physical death, but rather death of the soul. "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in gehenna" (Matthew 10:28, ESV, emphasized emendation mine). How then can Paul be referring to physical death, which Christ Himself dismissed as irrelevant in the face of spiritual death?

2. "Therefore, nothing died before Adam doomed the creation." It cannot be conclusively proven from Scripture whether or not anything died before Adam's sin. But it can be proven that created things had the capability to die. The fruit of the Tree of Life could have given Adam the capacity to live forever (Genesis 3:22). Deprived of that tree, however, he eventually died. Therefore, Adam's natural state was physical mortality. Even if he had never sinned, had he declined to eat of the Tree of Life, he would have died. It is likely that all other organisms on the Earth were naturally mortal, and it is unlikely that any of them were provided fruit from the Tree of Life. (Perhaps insects derived some life-enhancing benefits from its nectar, and detritivores may have benefited from its fallen leaves or rotting fruit. But we cannot be sure.) Therefore, we may surmise that organisms on the Earth did die before Adam's fall.

In summation, the most likely reading of the Genesis account shows that all created organisms on the Earth were initially mortal; that Adam, although mortal, had access to a life-extending tree and was potentially immortal; that Adam lost access to that tree and became mortal in fact, eventually dying. The most likely reading of the New Testament shows that Adam's sin was not the cause of physical death, but the death of the soul in gehenna. (The meaning of death, soul, and gehenna are all open to some interpretation.)

175 posted on 07/31/2007 8:27:30 PM PDT by Caesar Soze
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