Posted on 01/15/2005 3:57:44 PM PST by Catholic54321
Was the world created exactly as it says in the book of Genesis, or is the theory of evolution a more accurate account? Not every faith that includes Genesis among its Scriptures feels compelled to debate the matter. For the vast majority of Jews, any discrepancy between science and faith was pretty much settled 1,100 years ago, said Rabbi Steve Vale of Congregation Ha-Makom (The Jewish Community of Solano County).
Saadia Gaon, a Babylonian rabbi who helped codify Rabbinic Judaism, resolved the conflict, Vale said.
"Saaida Gaon said that if there is scientific evidence of something and it contradicts what Torah (Scripture) says, the Torah can't be wrong and science can't be wrong. I'm wrong. I'm interpreting it wrong," the rabbi explained.
Genesis, for instance, says the world was created in seven days. "There's no compelling reason for us to say a day is 24 hours," Vale said. "There's no reason to say God could not create the world through evolution."
Nor do Jews necessarily hold that Genesis is the start of the story. "'In the beginning' really means, 'when God was beginning the world,' " Vale said. "The Bible starts the story with the beginning of life and human beings, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it was the beginning of God or his creation."
It is impossible to know whether the world evolved or was created as Genesis describes it, Vale said, but that's not the point of Scripture.
"For Jews, the Bible is a book about why we are here and how we're supposed to act, not how we're created. People are welcome to read that into it, but it's not for us," Vale said. "I'm more interested in how I'm supposed to act, how I'm supposed to treat people on the streeet, how am I supposed to connect to God through the acts in my life."
A similar philosophy guides Roman Catholic teaching.
"We say that the lessons of the Bible are lessons about God's relationship with the human race and our relationship with God - that all the stories are calculated, if you will, to elucidate something of the relationship between God and the universe and his people," said the Rev. Vincent O'Reilly of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Vacaville. "So the Bible tells us who made the world and what the responsibility of creation is to the one who created it, but we rely on science to teach us how the world developed."
In the Catholic church, science and faith collided in the 17th century, when astronomers Johannes Kepler and Galileo upended the church's teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe. In the intervening 400 years, Catholic theologians and scientists have come to a truce.
"All truth has to come from God," O'Reilly explained. "If science is telling us some truth about the development or evolution of the universe, then that's the truth as we know it today. Five hundred years from now, some scientist may come up with a slightly different version. But that won't change our position that a creator designed the universe and we're striving to understand how."
Besides, he added, how God created the world isn't the point of the creation story. "The story is ultimately that human beings are the highpoint of God's creation. And God has charged humans with responsibility for the rest of creation."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also doesn't spend a lot of time debating the fine points of evolution or creationism. Its official teaching lies between the two points.
"We believe that God created the world, but not necessarily in seven days," said Dayton Call, a spokeman for the church in Solano County. "When it comes to evolution, we don't believe human beings evolved. We believe we were descended from Adam and Eve. But that's as far as the church's position goes on the subject. If there's evolution involved as far as the creative process, we would not argue that there's not."
Orthodox Christians also steer clear of the creation vs. evolution debate, said the Rev. Silas Ruark of St. Timothy Orthodox Church (Antiochan) in Cordelia.
"Orthodoxy basically accepts the fact that there is very much we don't know about the beginning and the end," Ruark said. "We know that in the beginning God created. And we know that in the end he will bring it to a close. But to venture into a great deal of speculation about the how or even the when is for us to assume that we can understand the mind of God."
Most Orthodox Christians accept the Genesis account as being a "true revelation of God's creation and God's interaction with humankind," Ruark said. Orthodox Christianity also teaches that the world has "gone haywire" through the disobedience of humankind.
"But the exact hows of the creation, the hows of his incarnation and the hows of his second coming are known only to God," Ruark said.
Is God lying?
From the simplistic way of reading the bible, I would have to conclude that either Luke and Chronicles or Matthew is a liar or is wrong. Since that is not so, I must conclude that I am misunderstanding one of them.
No, You just need to read more :)
Mary's lineage is through Nathan, through Bathsheba, the physical lineage of Jesus birth.
Joseph is NOT the physical parent of Jesus, so HIS father, Jacob would not be listed twice.
It is simple: Matthew lists Jesus lineage through Solomon, the LEGAL parentage through the father, and Luke does through Nathan, the actual parental lineage through Mary.
This is what I have been saying. People have to read what it says, all of it.
While this one is just a case of needing to dig deeper to understand what is an apparent connundrum, the reading of Genesis is not. You have ignored the clear modifiers that directly say the days of Genesis are literal 24 hour days, you then take the statements of Genesis 2 and try to apply the same word understanding of Genesis 1 when they are two tellings of the same event in two different ways. Genesis 1 speaks of the Creation of all things, while Genesis 2 is an expansion on the creation of MAN.
you also need to re-examine what you just said.
If each day of creation was 1000 years, then go back and look at each day and what was created.
Then tell me that each day and what was created existed by itself for 1000 years.
Notice also the order of events.
What was created first?
Compare that with evolutionary thinking as to what has to come first.
As for us being in the 7th millenium, look again at what you said.
6000 years for creation?? it has been over 4000 years since Noah's flood.
It's simple to you, and as I noted, it's a good theory. But the bible doesn't SAY that. You're inferring what the bible MEANT because you are confronted with an obvious contradiction. Luke doesn't say Heli was Mary's father, he says, "Joseph, of Heli" when Joseph was not of Heli.
If you had never read Matthew, and had only read Luke, and I tried to tell you that Heli wasn't Joseph's father, you would say I was saying God was lying.
Likewise, 400 years ago, you would be insisting to me that travelling to the moon would be impossible, because there was a firmament seperating us from the moon.
And 800 years ago, you would be insisting the Earth was flat, because the bible plainly speaks of the "four corners" of the Earth.
And you insist that there is no contradiction between Chs. 1 and 2. Yet Chapter 2 says Man was created before the plants grew, because there was no rain from above and no-one to till the Earth. Chapter 1 says the plants brought forth abundance three days before Man. You had kinda skrited the issue by saying that chapter 2 didn't happen all in one day. Fine, but it still says that Man was created before plants were.
The continued existence of comets -- our knowledge of how terrestrial and extraterrestrial catastrophes are evolution stoppers hundreds of thousands of times, over billions of years -- lack of transitional fossils, lack of erosion characteristics in most geologic layers -- the pooling of fossilized bones from supposed disparate ages -- lack of long term silt in the oceans from continental erosion -- lack of sufficient dust on all known solar bodies -- continued high energy geologic activity on small planetary bodies that should be dead & frozen solid -- mature galaxies when they should still be in the developmental stage according to the big bang model and the general befuddlement by the scientific community at all of the continued contradictory data being revealed by modern technology.
Science is great for some things, but deceptive when it comes to theorizing where the data doesn't allow. 1000 generations of mDNA translates to 40,000 years, well within the potential genealogical gaps within the Scripture. I personally believe it is closer to 10,000 years and there are not gaps in the genealogies based on the only authentic revelation that has been supernaturally preserved by our Creator, the Holy Bible.
Of the issues you raise as evidence of a young earth which I can speak to, you are preposetrous to claim that they stump scientists.
On Comets: The Solar System is surrounded by the Oort cloud, billions of ice chunks. The few we experience as comets are those which have been knocked out of their orbits, including by events as mundane as two ice chunks colliding. So, yes, comets are "new" in that those we presently see as comets will quickly wear out. But there will be billions and billions to replace them.
Your "evolution stoppers" are just the opposite; they cause rapid population change and explain why evolutionary bottlenecks help evolution occur in fits which are too quick to be observed over the geological record. the geological record discerns events which take place over millions of years, and simply could never be expected to reveal population changes which happen over mere thousands of years.
In fact, we do see intermediate stages of animal development in the fossil record, which have helped explain some previously inexplicable evolutionary steps. For instance, it has long been pointed out that a bird-reptile without feathers could not have adapted its forelimbs for flight. Sure enough, they have discovered non-flying brd-reptiles which appear to have feathers. Turns out that the same structure which makes feathers useful for flight also makes them extremely effective insulators, as anyone with down quilts knows. Feathers were an adaptation tor etain body heat. It just so happens that of the dozens of lineages of animals which attempted gliding (squirrels, lemurs, bats, pterosaurs, etc.), one prarticular group happened to have a feature (feathers) which aided its gliding ability. The feature was then refined to the point where true flight was acheived.
Which small, frozen bodies do you expect should be extinct of geological activities? Only Pluto would fit your definition, since the others (Io, etc.) are in orbit around high-gravity planets like Jupiter or are close enough to the sun to maintain geologic activity (Mercury, etc.).
For some of the other things you cite, I have no idea what yyou are tking about. What do you mean most geological layers doesn't have "erosion characteristics?"
The only one you cite which is actually a puzzle is that the moon (the only other solar body inert enough to collect dust which we have ever visited) does seem to lack sufficient dust.
There are an infinite number of things which have not been explained, or which don't meet our expectations. Every riddle solved by science will certainly pose dozens of others. The problem you face is that creationism doesn't solve any of the problems.
If the Earth is only 7000 years old, how did fossils become embedded in rocks thousands of feet underground? Why do the rocks with the lowest radioactive Iridium ratios lack fossils of higher organisms, even when lower organisms are abundant? How were metamorphic rocks formed so that they appear similar to sedimentary rocks, yet are chemically inconsistent with sedimentation? Why are the sea floors which are slowly spreading actually made of the rock created by slowly spreading sea floors, even though at their rate of spread, it would take tens or hundreds of millions of years? Why do we see a more primitive universe when we look away from the center of the universe? And yes, although geologic inversions do exist, why does radioactive iridium depletion correspond so well with local-relative depth, and in a manner so similar to radioactive carbon depletion?
The universe appears old, no way around it. The scientific community is not at all befuddled about that. Pointing to a creationists' web site which claims scientists are befuddled is no evidence that scientists are really befuddled.
>>The Bible also speaks of the circle of the earth. I would argue the statement above is just as much a figure of speech as the sun rising and setting. We all know that the Sun does not rise or set, but that the earth rotates around it.<<
But Johnny, the sun rising and setting was not a figure of speech at all! The ancients did believe the Sun rose and set! I'm not saying they necessarily thought the earth to have pointed edges, but they did think the Earth was flat, as is evidenced by language such as the four corners of the Earth. When the ancients said, "As surely as the Sun rises," they were wrong!
My point is that we understand misconceptions as being "figures of speech" once everyone agrees that they are merely misconceptions. One day, people will understand the six days as a figure of speech, just as they understand these to be figures of speech:
The rising and setting of the Sun
The bottomless depths of the Ocean
The leviathon
The four corners of the Earth
From where the North Wind blows
The love in your heart
The light of your eyes
The floodgates of Heaven
The firmament
Inspiration does not correct scientific misconceptions; it does not speak in the language of science.
OOps: I missed this:
>>Science is great for some things, but deceptive when it comes to theorizing where the data doesn't allow. 1000 generations of mDNA translates to 40,000 years, well within the potential genealogical gaps within the Scripture. I personally believe it is closer to 10,000 years and there are not gaps in the genealogies based on the only authentic revelation that has been supernaturally preserved by our Creator, the Holy Bible.<<
There are no geneaological gaps in scripture. In just 20 generations, the bible brings us all the way up to Abraham, who lived, at most, a mere 2000 years before Christ.
By the way, I just realized something. Here's a fun trivia question: Given the year he died, what did Methusaleh most likely die from?
No. The sun wasn't around till the fourth day. Plants were around on the third. Unless you know of a mechanism where plants can thrive for a thousand years without photosynthesis, I think I will stick to what Scripture says, not what deconstructionalists and God haters want it to say.
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On Comets: The Solar System is surrounded by the Oort cloud, billions of ice chunks.
Even Carl Sagan admitted that there is absolutely no evidence of the Oort cloud ("Comets", 1985). According to Stern and Weissman (Nature #409) evolutionary theories pretend that comets are left over planetary material. Earlier studies ignored collisions between comet nuclei and overly estimated this alleged "cloud" to be about 40 earths, but when collisions are factored in, amount to about one - no where near enough to explain the comets.
The liar shamelessly continued with even more outrageous departures from reality:
Your "evolution stoppers" are just the opposite; they cause rapid population change and explain why evolutionary bottlenecks help evolution occur in fits which are too quick to be observed over the geological record.
This is the Rube Goldberg version of evolution. No matter how contradictory the evidence, one can, after following a path similar to Billy's path in Bill Keane's "Family Circus", actually make water dry, black become white, and up to be down. Evolution is based on the assumption that processes remain the same over billions of years. The liar here now is taking evidence for a young earth and is ignoring the very foundational premise of evolution in order to say something totally absurd.
Unspecified fantasies and delusions about reptiles with feathers as absolute proof of intermediate stages of evolution snipped as it comes from a source known for nothing but lies. (What does one refute when no details or even a name of this alleged critter are provided?) What is especially comical is that the liar suggests that cold-blooded reptiles need feathers for insulation like warm blooded critters do. Yet another flunk-out in basic biology.
For some of the other things you cite, I have no idea what yyou are tking about.
Translation: My crack pipe is recently missing and I can't possibly come up with another psychedelic explanation.
Then the liar, who can confidently explain how circles are squares wonders:
If the Earth is only 7000 years old, how did fossils become embedded in rocks thousands of feet underground?
A global flood? Mud deposits form from sediments, rapidly burying live critters. As the flood recedes and the land dries the compacted mud hardens into rock? Evolutionist prefer to think that a critter dies, falls down and the body lays unmolested for thousands if not tens of thousands of years waiting for dust particles to land on it and bury it. While this time elapses, no predators or bacteria dare touch this carcass like they do now. Amazing Fact! According to evolutionists, a critter dies and never rots or even enters into the food chain! It just hangs out for millions of years waiting to be convered with dirt several thousand feet thick. (Of course no mechanism for how this dirt gets there... pointless details, I know)
Then the liar, exhausted of any more emotional energy, just declares by fiat: "The universe appears old, no way around it."
The authority is the Lord revealed through Swedenborg.
Is there something in particular you;d like to point me to? I read the first article on the second link and it was immediately apparent that it was teaching pseudo-science for people who are not even remotely educated in science. Nonsense like:
"In the present world, neither evolution nor creation is taking place, so far as can be observed (and science is supposed to be based on observation!). Cats beget cats and fruit-flies beget fruit-flies. "
Nonsense!
Offspring are not clones of their parents. We see genetic variability. Observe long enough, and you can even witness a novel genetic expression caused by a mutation. Most will be deleterious, but the process for additive mutation has been clearly shown.
At most, I would say that biologists have not shown how the process got started. But they have demonstrated that the process is continuing today, in front of our eyes.
Don't believe in evolution? Look at Fido. 100,000 years ago, all dogs were essentially the same. Today, selective breeding has created breeds as diverse as the greyhound, Lhasa Apsa and St. Bernard. Man did that. Man also used selective breeding to adapt a plant more like Queen Anne's lace into the modern carrot.
All evolution is is selective breeding*, except instead of being selected to suit man's tastes, the organism is selectively bred to adapt to a changing environment.
(*Ok, that's a little bit of an oversimplification. Macroevolution does require unique gene mutation; otherwise selective breeding is somewhat limited in what it can accomplish.)
The fact that you do not even use my name speaks volumes as to your character.
>>Even Carl Sagan admitted that there is absolutely no evidence of the Oort cloud ("Comets", 1985). <<
Uh, that was in 1985. That's downright silly to cite a 20-year old source to say that no evidence for something has been found. The first Oort object was found in 2003. However, much evidence had been collected previously.
>>Earlier studies ignored collisions between comet nuclei and overly estimated this alleged "cloud" to be about 40 earths, but when collisions are factored in, amount to about one - no where near enough to explain the comets.<<
Funny how you cite measurements for something which you claim doesn't exist.
>>Evolution is based on the assumption that processes remain the same over billions of years. <<
You've mistaken a laymen's connotation for scientific theory. Evolution does measure the rate of mutation, which is relatively constant. Nothing ever claimed that the rate of propagation of a mutation was constant. Darwin himself cited lizards and turtles he expected had been unchanged for unimaginable lengths of time, and compared it to the amazingly fast evolution of finches.
>>What is especially comical is that the liar suggests that cold-blooded reptiles need feathers for insulation like warm blooded critters do.<<
Uh, the point is that these reptiles had just evolved warm-bloodedness.
>>Mud deposits form from sediments, rapidly burying live critters. As the flood recedes and the land dries the compacted mud hardens into rock?<<
The rock which is made out of hardened mud is shale. It is actually a good source of fossils, but fossils also occur in many other typoes of rock, including metamorphic rock. No known natural process can create metamorphic rock quickly. And even shale is often found in places where mud would not accumulate, even if there had been a flood reaching the top of Mt. Everest.
>>According to evolutionists, a critter dies and never rots or even enters into the food chain! It just hangs out for millions of years waiting to be convered with dirt several thousand feet thick. (Of course no mechanism for how this dirt gets there... pointless details, I know)<<
Fossils, of course, are created by what doesn't rot and what isn't edible. How does the dirt get there? Well, that's why animals which live in or near rivers and shorelines get their fossils found most often: Fossilization does rely on silt deposition. Frankly, there is a relative lack of fossils from organisms which live in dry lands.
As for my "delusions and fantasies" about the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, I can only say this:
Sorry, I hadn't realized you've been living in a cave. The discovery of intermediate species between birds and reptiles caused quite a stir a few years ago.
Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx are two genera, discovered in 1998, which possessed feathers. Caudipteryx has forearms which are two short for flight, and lacks the developed sterna apon which flight muscles are attached. In short, it could not fly. (It's doubtful that Protoarchaeopteryx could fly, either.) There is a plain progression of the development of the feather (Yes! Intermediate Species!) from Sinosauropteryx to Caudipteryx and protoarcheaopteryx to archaeopteryx.
While these organisms were not likely the direct ancestors of modern birds, but rather survived until after the origin of true birds, they plainly show that various species of what must be considered reptiles were evolving along lines which led to modern birds. The following link (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html) discusses the reptilian qualities of the archaeopteryx, and includes a link to a discussion on the discovery of protoarchaeopteryx.
FR includes my closing parenthesis as part of the link. So here is the link, sans parenthesis:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html
Down like feathers don't enable you to fly; ask the Wright Brothers. I await the science.
Evolutionist claims are preposterous. You are pretending like my computer -- which has a flawed operating system made by Microsoft -- just needs a little kick in the side, or power surge to move one of those little 0's to a 1's postion. Presto chango we have Excel birthed. The API use the same types of calls. There is the proof.
For our next trick we will expose the computer to sunlight. The radiation zaps those little ones and zeros over millions of years, and SHAZAM Word is birthed.
These mutations are on a roll. With the help of some Chimpanzees we will have the robot from "Lost in Space" in no time (only if the computer is restricted to an isolated environment like a junk yard where it can do the "Punk-Eek"). Danger Will Robinson!
It really, really happens
You must believe it's true
Smarties are lined up
To try and brainwash you
It all ties together
With a little glue
From the goo, the zoo, to you
Death is nothing new
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