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To: DittoJed2
Creationism is accepted by most biblical scholars as a morality tale. Nothing more.

As a matter of fact, there were NO creationists until the early 1600's, because all Christians understood that creationism and a number of other stories were indeed morality tales and NOT literal truth.

Literalism is a fairly new phenonemon.

Most biblical scholars, I would say all, but that would be pushing it, because there are probably one or 2 that do, do NOT take the OT in any way shape or form as literal, except where it is obvious that it has an historical basis.

The jews out of egypt, although it is accepted that most likely that story has been added to changed a bit etc. The basis of the story is true, but most likely some of the miracles have been added etc to the story to make it more interesting.

Anyway, no, YOU could NEVER convince me that genesis is literal truth, why? Because the history of the bible tells me that it is NOT literal truth. Biblical scholars agree that it cannot be taken as literal truth, creation stories around tha world that closely match it, tell me that it is NOT literal truth.

The flood story is indeed an historical event, babylonian myth tells about a great flood, and geology shows that indeed around that time frame there was a flood in the region that would have seemed that the WHOLE world had flooded, when in fact it was just a very small area, but huge to ancient man. Because the "whole" world at that time was MUCH smaller to them.

Historically the bible, and especially genesis was not taken literally, again, literalism is a fairly recent phenomenon.

The morals that these stories gave were what was important, not their literal happening.

So no, the ONLY way to convince me that the bible is literal, and the creation story is literal, would be for god himself to come down and tell me so, because literalism is fairly new, and literalists are actually very few in number.

A VAST majority of OT believers are NOT literalists, a VAST majority of Christians and New Testament believers are NOT literalists.

Literalists are a very small minority, and always will be, literalism is a fringe movement, and will over time slowly die out.

Please do not take offense at this, but I call literalism the nonthinking persons religion. Because if you take it literally, the morals etc that you are supposed to get from the stories are ignored and the literalism of the story is concentrated on instead.

You are supposed to be concentrating on the moral of the stories, not on how can we prove this is literal, because they were NEVER meant to be taken literally.

The moral is lost, because you are trying to prove the literal truth of them, and the historical veracity. Guess what? You can't, not without trying to tear down the sciences at the same time.

So what do you get, you get literal creationists, trying to prove something happened that never happened, and by doing so, attacking science and it's well layed tenets.

This is another reason why I find literalists so amusing, because you will IGNORE ALL scientific evidence that disputes you, yet leap on ANY scientific evidence, even UPROVEN and without evidence, that will help you.

To be a literalist is a sad lot in life as far as I am concerned, not only are you a very small minority, but you yell and scream and whine because science does not show your literalism to be true. Then attempt to change or to ignore science in order for it to fit your narrow worldview.

Now, onto the big bang. evolution does NOT care about the big bang, it had absolutely NO effect whatsoever on evolution. The only thing the big bang gives us is a time frame, the age of the earth is well layed out, the age of the universe is well layed out. It has been figured from a number of different angles and ways, and the answers are always within a few percentage points, about 13.7 billion years, and the age of the earth around 4 billion. Pretty easy stuff, and PLENTY of time for evolution to have occurred. But you don't like the fact that there is enough time for evolution to have occurred, so you argue the age of the universe and the earth, you IGNORE the science in order to come to the answer that you already have.

Yes, creationists are amusing, you have an answer, that you should not be concentrating on, because it IS NOT literal truth, then search for the evidence to make it true, and ignore ALL evidence that makes it false.

Yes, it is amusing, and yes, god would have to come down on high and tell me himself. It won't happen, so I will just keep on, keeping on.

1,315 posted on 08/19/2003 8:56:13 AM PDT by Aric2000 (If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance god)
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To: Aric2000
Aric,

Just trust me on this one, buddy. You do not want to start lecturing me about theology or Christian belief throughout history. Two of my degrees (both at the Masters level) are in related fields. And I have studied historical beliefs and modern theological beliefs enough to know that this entire post of yours is, I believe the technical term for this is, "full of hooey." I would advise you to run from this subject quickly and do not turn back.
1,319 posted on 08/19/2003 9:05:44 AM PDT by DittoJed2
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