Shpongle

http://www.christianforums.com/showt...14#post1019014

This trainwreck of a thread has just reached new lows...

pz

Aaargh. I don't see how anyone can bear to linger amongst the know-nothing vermin of christianforums -- I'd be clawing my own eyes out.

Mageth

Ignorance is one thing. Willful ignorance is inexcusable.

MrDarwin

What the creationists are trying to say is that the biblical passages that refer to living things are specifically referring to animals and I think they're probably right. I don't see much in debating this point unless somebody can go back to the original language of the text to see what words were used, and show precisely how those words were used by the people alive at the time.

What I find much more fascinating is that they use that "breath of life in their nostrils" crap to justify insects not being on the ark, even though in other passages Genesis is pretty explicit that the flood killed every living thing, not just all living things that literally have nostrils, which pretty much limits it to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (although I'd like somebody to point out that most fish have literal nostrils too!).

lpetrich

However, fish do not breathe with their nostrils.

Also, insects have spiracles on the sides of their bodies, which may count as honorary nostrils.

Albion

Well, if death entered the world after the fall and if plants were being eaten in Eden, it pretty much has to follow that plants weren't alive. The thing is that cell biology has shown that plant and animal cells aren't all that different and that plants are alive by any scientific definition of life, but still we see the Bible as being touted as scientifically accurate in all respects.

Jimmy Higgins

Plants are an interesting breed. Actually it depends on which creation story you read. The Babylonian "First Story of Creation" deams no real importance to plants, just that they grow. In fact, I don't think that it even notes that plants reproduce, something which isn't ordered on until God creates the fish and birds.

However, the Caananite "Story of Paradise" does indicate a particular interest in trees, for while the ground must be tilled to produce vegatables, trees will just give out fruit, with no effort. This is why when God creates Eden, he does plants and trees seperately.

I tell ya, them peoples are consistent. I'll give them that.

Peez

Yes, and JaelfromFR stated "I wouldn't consider a plant a living creature." (my emphasis) However, they are being pretty vague about it.Agreed, but of course fish nostrils are not used to breath. This could quickly become a semantic argument. I should add that despite notto's statement "What about fish and insects (some of who absorb O2 through their "skin"?", neither fish nor insects generally absorb significant amounts of oxygen through their skin. Fish exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide through their gills, and (at least in the case of bony fish) do "breath" in the sense of "inhaling" water into their pharynx and "exhaling" it through their gill slits. Insects exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide through about two dozen small openings (called spiracles, but they could be called nostrils ) found in the sides of the body. These are the ends of a system of tubes that extends all through the body, with oxygen and carbon dioxide being exchanged at the ends of the tubes. In some insects, body movements actually move air in and out of these tubes, so they might even be said to "breath."

A fact that everyone in that thread seems to be unaware of is that plants need to get oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide just like animals do. Plant cells carry on many of the same metabolic processes as animals, including cellular respiration (the set of processes that uses up oxygen and releases carbon dioxide in bacteria, protists, plants, fungi, and animals). The only advantage that plants have here is that, when they have light, they can carry out photosynthesis which releases more oxygen than the plant cells are using up, and consumes more carbon dioxide than the plant cells release. Once the lights are turned out, plants are in the same situation as animals: they would suffocate without oxygen. Interestingly, they get this oxygen (and get rid of excess carbon dioxide) through small openings (nostrils? ) called stomata.

By the way, most amphibians are born without lungs, and some salamanders remain lungless their whole lives. I guess that they are not "living creatures."

Peez

Arikay

Yeah that lady is just amazing, the amount of work she will do to keep herself hidden in her book.

She claims to read the bible literally, and yet says that Adam and Eve suffered a "spiritual" death and not a physical one. When asked if she had literal scripture to back it up, she seems to have dodged the question and moved on.

Then there is the part where she basically believes that if you dont believe in creationism, you go to hell.

Then there is her statements that plants arent alive.

Then there is the problem that if there was no death before sin, but god did say, to be fruitful and multiply. So the Multiplying and not dieing animals would overrun Eden in a short period of time.
We should thank Adam and Eve for that sin.

Rather funny thread though.

Jimmy Higgins

They like to say its a gradual growing conception. Its noted in the NT. Kinda like Satan and "The Fall". No where in the Tanakh is Satan established as being part of that story, yet they insist he is because "he has to be".
Just to clear up, I believe that animals had the whole earth to use. God gave man the garden, a paradise to live in.
Yeah, now we can eat meat.