Hallucigenia

And you can prove that the Biblical account of creation was not meant as a metaphor...how?

Badfish

God said let US make MAN in our image.

It is highly unlikely God was a one celled organism.

Why would it be a metaphor? No, it is not meant to be read as a metaphor, it is clear Adam was created in a day. If God intended or had man evolutionize, he would have said let man BECOME man through divine evolution of the species.

It is clear man was made in Gods image right then and there. The biblical lineage is clear too, it did not leave any gaps for speculation on evolution.

What evidence do you have to believe anything else?

WinAce

GTX: the Bible also says little or nothing about nuclear fusion, modern chemistry, cosmology and other fields. It also says much we now know to be untrue.

Are we to assume that a Christian is thus obligated to accept an obviously non-literal creation myth composed by Bronze Age people looking for easy answers just because some other Christians think they should?

Use your mind and pick and choose the parts you can believe in without feeling silly, just like every other Christian does (remember the flat earth verses and Old Testament atrocities no one will defend nowadays?).

Just don't claim there's any kind of objective interpretation, because the simplest refutation to that is that there would be just one Christian belief possible if it were the case, not the thousands of mutually exclusive denominations we see.

WinAce

Also, I distinctly remember a creation myth that predates Genesis having the gods say 'let the animals arise from the ground and change into one another' or some such. (Comments, anyone? I don't remember exactly which it was aside from being very old)

Are we to assume that that myth was more correct than Genesis, given that it matches the evidence better?

MrDarwin

I won't defend Christian beliefs of any kind, only try to understand them. I'm still trying to figure out how we could possibly have free will when an omniscient and omnipotent God created the earth already knowing everything each of us would ever think or do.

Badfish

Boy you guys are speedy, I will like it here.

Theology concerning Christianity in and of itself is another topic I suppose. But Christianity does revolve around the fact that we are indeed created and did not evolve. So we must explore this theology as a theory and possible evidence.

Dr Rick

Maybe we should clarify something for GTX; most of us here do not believe in gods, so telling us something that doesn't exist made us in its image isn't a convincing argument for this audience. To make it convincing, one would first have to provide evidence that gods or a god exists and that this evidence exceeds the evidence that they do not.

As a corollary to our lack of belief in gods, most of us believe the Bible is filled with many fictional accounts and <a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/" target="_blank">errors and absurdities</a>, so using it as evidence for the existence of a god or to refute evolution won't work too well here, either.

Rick

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Dr Rick

Look <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org" target="_blank">here</a>.

Rick

Hallucigenia

Stating that it is meant to be read literally because it wasn't meant to be a metaphor is rather circular, you realize. As many Christian apologeticists are fond of pointing out, no man can know the mind of God. So how can you know what God would have said, if He meant something different? How can you even know what He truly meant, for that matter? It ultimately all boils down to interpretation, and interpretation is in the mind of the beholder.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/" target="_blank">This site sums it up nicely.</a>

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Hallucigenia ]</p>

Hallucigenia

I thought Christianity revolved around the teachings of Christ....