Posted on 09/22/2003 4:06:31 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Salvation is based in faith in Christ's sacrifice on our behalf for our personal salvation. You will not be condemned to hell because you are confused on a point of scripture. The disciples themselves were confused on enough points of scripture. I never said what you have imputed to me, and I think you know that. If you choose not to believe Moses, however, I don't know what religion you are, but I'll spare myself the time speculating.
Still if you won't believe Moses, why should you believe what Christ did or said about anything? That is not my question: that is Christ's question -- to you or anyone who would not accept Moses' writings. THAT is where it becomes a salvation matter, because either Christ is faithful ( read: "credible") and just (read: "obligated to remain true to His promise") to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9), or He is not.
I still don't think it is wise to get hung up on a requirement that someone believe creation occurred in 6 24-hour days.
Read: "I don't care what Moses said, or what Christ thinks about what Moses said." OK, then the Christ you claimed has saved you is not the God of the Bible. Why get "hung up" about anything that Christ affirmed about death, the Creation, or the need for salvation at all? The God of the Bible does not lie, however. If the God you worship cannot speak credibly or truthfully I submit that your God is not the God of the Bible.
If Moses' writings are good enough for Christ, why aren't they good enough for you?
I think of the scripture saying "evening and morning" even when the sun, moon and stars had not yet been created. If we are being completely literal, could you please explain how there can be evening and morning with no sun, moon and stars?
The answer is found in my post to S-cat on this same question. See post #99
I think you just answered your own question, no?
Good, then we agree it is not a salvation issue.
"Still if you won't believe Moses, why should you believe what Christ did or said about anything?"
It's a bit of hyperbole to claim that someone does not believe Moses if they do not think the 6 creation days were 24-hour periods. That is like saying one does not believe Jesus if they do not believe He was in the grave for three 24-hour periods.
"Read: "I don't care what Moses said, or what Christ thinks about what Moses said."
I don't recall any scripture where Jesus said the 6 days were 24-hour periods either. Another bit of hyperbole on your part.
What we can agree on is that you are confused about scripture. The scripture about which you are confused most certainly is an issue dealing with the credibility of Christ, and by extension the salvation he has promised.
It's a bit of hyperbole to claim that someone does not believe Moses if they do not think the 6 creation days were 24-hour periods. That is like saying one does not believe Jesus if they do not believe He was in the grave for three 24-hour periods.
As He is God who inspired Moses' writings, and with him, his choice of words, I think Jesus more than knew the Hebrew meaning of the words that you have trouble grasping, and on which he personally refers to speak to His own credibility.
I don't recall any scripture where Jesus said the 6 days were 24-hour periods either. Another bit of hyperbole on your part.
He didn't have to. Moses already did. Jesus inspired Moses' writings ("All scripture is given by insiration of God...."). Jesus created the sun and moon to mark to course of 24 hour time periods. Mankind, without too much effort should be able to understand what the Creator meant by "day," when He inspired Moses to wrote it. If you need a visual reminder, look up in the sky sometime.
LOL Can we also agree that you are arrogant and self-righteous?
"As He is God who inspired Moses' writings, and with him, his choice of words, I think Jesus more than knew the Hebrew meaning of the words that you have trouble grasping"
Were you raised speaking Hebrew? No, didn't think so. Just more examples of your arrogance and self-righteousness.
"Mankind, without too much effort should be able to understand what the Creator meant by "day,"
Yeah, you'd think we could understand what a week is too, but then God throws that 70 weeks of Daniel in there.
Don't bother posting back. When someone shows themselves to be arrogant and self-righteous as you have, it seems wise to simply shake the dust of them from my shoes.
Let's agree that as the merit of your position erodes you can't lose a debate graciously.
Were you raised speaking Hebrew? No, didn't think so.
Sadly, somehow you think this matters. As your argument erodes so does your common sense, unfortunately.
Yeah, you'd think we could understand what a week is too, but then God throws that 70 weeks of Daniel in there.
Which sadly again, demonstrates that you know little enough about the scriptures themselves to be able to distinguish what is metaphoric prophecy and what are historical accounts.
While the following is certainly obvious to just about anyone else who can read plainly, and this is your fundamental problem in this debate as we have come to learn, Daniel and Moses are two different authors writing in two different contexts. It is unwise to confuse the two lest you risk whatever credibility you may still possess in the discussion.
Don't bother posting back. When someone shows themselves to be arrogant and self-righteous as you have, it seems wise to simply shake the dust of them from my shoes.
So, now you want to cower from the debate and spit a little venom on the way out. Ok, you lose. I accept your grudging surrender.
Reduction of one's position to parsimonious name calling is the surest sign of a loser merely trying to salvage what's left of his pride.
"Pride goeth before destruction...."
It certainly appears that you have arrived. You may want to check your pride and self-importance at the door before you cast other worldly-wise aspersions on the credibility of the words of Christ as they were breathed by Him to Moses. You also might want to study a little more Hebrew while you're at it, before you elect to tussle intellectually with someone who has.
Are the writings of Paul part of the inspired Word of God? If so, what's the question?
I'll grant you that the sin-less, pre-Fall world was quite a different from the sin-filled, death-drenched world in which we live today. If the "world-to-come" is in fact a restoration of the sin-less order which existed prior to the Fall, the lion as we are told, lies down with the lamb.
As you ponder the animal question, I would read Paul for what has been written plainly, and not split hairs unnecssarily. If your position is that the sin of man is not responsible for death entering the world, you are simply at direct odds with the plain reading of scripture.
A look at both Testaments shows that God and Jesus have very different attitudes regarding death than we do
As a Christian (and I am assuming you are one, of course) why must you have a different "attitude regarding death" than God, if we are instructed to be "Christ-like" -- and therefore of the same mind as God with respect to meaning of life and death? Please cite your scripture references which support your position.
...so there is little basis to say that it would be cruel for God to not to give animals eternal bodies.
When man sinned the entire Creation was cursed. This includes death of humans and animals, both of which have spiritual components even as observed in Ecclesiastes 3. Death is death. It is unneccesary to make the concept more difficult than it needs to be.
(especially when animals never had the gift of an eternal soul).
Scriptural evidence? Compare with Ecclesiastes 3.
In that light, I would think that the big problem would not be with the Creation story, but with the Flood story.
While these are two separate issues, I'm interested to learn of the problem your premise has with the latter.
Additionally, we can both quibble over numbers and trivia (such as the age of Earth) within the Bible--but once we start touching upon the area of sin and spiritual conduct, there must be no quibble there.
While the age of the earth and the universe itself are matters of discussion, I'd hardly consider the discussions "quibbling," or mere "trivia."
Evolutionary premises are assumed by their adherants to require vast eons on time to make impossibible things happen for which they simply have no evidence. Furthermore, there are no timespans, envisioned by them or others, adequate to surmount the inherent impossibilities of their premises.
There might be a reconcilation of the Bible with evolution--especially with God being silent on the eternal state of animal pre-Fall--but never with fornication and other sins.
The reconcilliation is found in the simple observation that God's Creation recounted in the writings of Moses, which are in turn affirmed by Christ, Himself, does not make room for a parallel evolutionary account. To try to merge these disparate concepts merely contorts the plain reading of the scriptures in ways which make them say things they don't, or even imply, and distorts scripture in such a way as to make it unrecognizable as well as uncredible.
The main point of first few chapters of Genesis is not that the Earth is 6,000 years, but that man rejected the gift of both spiritual and physical life with sin, therefore destroying his relationship with God and condemning himself and his progeny to be separated and to be born spiritually dead in a world of troubles.
You are only partially correct. Don't be lured into glossing over the facts of the account with platitudes, however true they may be.
It is up to you to prove by scripturally-based, cogent arguments that death of animals occurred in the pre-sin world, and that death for animals is not also as much a result of Adam's sin as is the death of man itself. The New Testament writings of Paul among others do not support a position otherwise, but I'm willing to let you give it a try.
Start here: Genesis 1 describes 6 days of Creation. Moses affirms that the world was created in 6 days (Ex 20). Jesus Christ affirms Moses (John 5). Is there any problem for you here? Eden's physical coordinates were described as lying at geographic points on Earth. How can you say that Eden was not part of the original six day Creation? The restatement of the creation account in Genesis 2 is not a description of a second Creation. As requested before, please furnish a scriptural basis for your position.
Gen 1:29&30 is clear that man and animals were vegitarians in the created world as it existed prior to Adam's fall. The ichneumon fly who in today's world burrows into such things as caterpillar larvae (who eat plants themselves) for sustinence could have as availed themselves of the plants. No problem there.
The great white shark whose offspring today cannibalize those not yet hatched is one way that they have been observed to feed today (what little has been observed by the way, by even those whose profession it is to study them.) Great whites consume plant forms as well as animals life. No problem there either.
Projection of the human attribute of "cruelty" on to God is a dangerous and unwise thing for anyone to do. Those who do, simply do not know the God of the Bible well enough themselves.
The scripture says the animals, like man were all vegitarians then. Do you not believe this? If not, your problem is with Moses, and by definition with Christ who affirms him and who inspired his writing. Your argument is not with me, and your examples do not support your your premise.
there is no way, period, that a tiger could have changed from a plant-eating animal to a carnivore in a matter of years)
Your evidence for this is what? Better yet, what ever will you say in the New Heavens and New Earth when the lion lies down with the lamb? You simply won't believe your eyes when it happens? Sad as it may be, it seems that for you at least there may be another appropriate place to insert Peter's inspired writings, begining at, "For this they are willingly ignorant of...."
I'll give you points for consistency here. Most Christians rebel against the New Age-ish concept that animals have any soul.
What's with this "most Christians" broad brush? I happen to be consistent because the scriptures themselves are consisitent. I don't know what nominally Christian circles you happen to associate with, but they are none with which I am familiar.
Do animals, in that case, require salvation?
The entirety of Creation requires salvation since man's sin resulted in the curse of God upon the Creation, which has resulted in death ever since. "The whole Creation groaneth and travailith in pain intil now...." Romans 8. Recall that in the end of this world, Satan is destroyed and "death is swallowed up in victory...." when Christ reigns in a New Heaven over a New Earth in the restoration of a sin-less Creation.
Ecclesiastes 3 tells me that the soul of animal returns to Earth, a reference to Genesis that Adam was created out of dirt.
Contextually the writer of Ecclesiastes doesn't particularly say where the soul of an animal actually arrives as it happens to go downward, or where the soul of man arrives, which happens to go upward. Both physical bodies become dust, and the comparison is simply how like beasts man can be, nothing more. Both man and animals have a spiritual component in the context of the term, "soul."
We'll have to disagree on that point. My belief is that 99% of Genesis is that Adam and Eve sinned and thus condemned themselves, and us, to undergo physical death--not only that, their sin condemned us to be born spiritually dead.
And all I'm saying is don't let the platitutde of a well-meaning, self-styled belief system conflict with the facts of the account as Jesus inspired them to be written.
I have a question of my own: Where would you draw the line between "scripturally safe" and "scriptually dangerous territory"? What are your thoughts on the scriptural grounds of the following common creationist beliefs: A 6,000 year old Universe and a 6,000 year old Earth?
Scripturally safe. I am comfortable with anything between traceably, and credibly valid recorded human history and somewhere this side of 15,000 years.
An old Universe and a young Earth?
Scripturally dangerous. Nothing in scripture separates the time of the the beginning of the Creation from the time of the end of Creation beyond 7 days.
An old universe, an old Earth but animal forms are a 6,000 year old phenomenon?
Same answer as immediately above. I'll simply submit that the onus rests upon you to furnish credible evidence for either, not merely premises, and suppositions as evolutionists do.
Intelligent design as postulated by Dembski?
You mean as the Psalmist notes: [we are] "fearfully and wonderfully made...," (Ps 139), not evolved? We are created by the Author of intellegent thought and the Greatest of Engineers, Himself. Do you agree?
...I'm not an atheist.
I believe I have addressed you all along as a Christian, not an atheist, though it is discerning of you to pick up on the fact that the core of evolutionary thought is a humanistic substitute for Theism. Sadly, even some Christians are lured into substituting their intellectual perceptions (read: "intellectual pride") for God's clear precepts.
This is a scriptural debate, not a science debate, so let's keep it confined within--but I have a strong background in science, and I believe that the comphrensive evidence points overwhelmingly to an old Earth.
OK, now, lets play fair. I have kept this debate completely in the realm of scriptural credibility up to this point. It's actually refreshing to debate with people who aren't simply agnostics and God-haters for a change. But now you've dropped "scientific trow-" to see who's is "bigger." Fair enough. Speaking for myself, possessing undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry as I do, I can tell you that no evidence exists, either comprehensive, or in the simplest, to point to an "old" Earth. It is a premise. It is a faith of it's "scientific" adherents, and the faith of those, perhaps like yourself, who believe in those same adherents. It is not founded in any scientifically observable fact whatsoever.
It is my belief that fact cannot contradict fact, and truth cannot contradict truth. The Bible is truth. If the Earth is 6,000,000,000 years old, that does not mean the Bible is not true at all.
Fact will not contradict fact. Jesus, Himself, is the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life. Jesus said if you won't believe Moses how will you believe Me?
Believe Moses. Believe Jesus.
You have six creation days according to Moses, and Jesus, the Word (John 1) was the Creator in the beginning
It's up to you to produce scientific evidence for your position, and I mean evidence -- not a mere premise, or philosophical construct -- and then to reconcile the contradiction of your premise with the facts of Creation as they were clearly written by Moses, as inspired by Christ, the Creator.
LOL More arrogance and self-righteousness on your part. I asked you not to post to me any further, but you simply could not resist. You think far too highly of yourself, little man. Good day.
And somehow I knew that if I posted a reply you just couldn't resist reading it... and responding to it. Touche, loser!
You are just waaaay too easy.
Ah, yes, how 'Christian' of you.
In no better command of any of his arguments or the tenets of his own proported Christianity, and no doubt still biting his nails and praying feverishly that I won't reply....
Ladies and gentlemen, MEGoody takes the bait yet again!
Like I said, you're just sooooo easy. Add to that: predictably pedestrian in his thought processes and in no better command of the Hebrew he will instead so gilbly compromise in order to take a position that pales for any relevance.
And like I said you are just soooo 'Christian'. LOL
Wow!! I get two posts for the price of one! You must be running a fire sale on your commentary, and still nobody's buying it.
Your credibilty on things "Christian" in this discussion ran out when you continued to argue against and twist in your own mind what is Christ's inspired word choice in the writings of Moses, and you continue to do so from a clearly uniformed and humanistic perspective.
If Christ holds no credibility for you, one may fairly wonder whether you know what the word "Christian" means.
You tried to shut down the debate at a time that you had clearly lost the debate. As is so typical, this was further manifested by your loss of civility, and your subsequent and continuing descent into vituperation.
You lost. Get over it.
He does so daily, thank you. Get to know Him better yourself and believe Him more than you do now, and you'll be blessed in ways you are not currently -- who knows, it may even begin with a restoration of your personal integrity and Christian credibility.
I suppose we can all hope.
LOL And the prophecy is fulfilled yet again.
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