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A Soul’s Salvation Could Hinge On the Earth’s Age


Guest shiloh357

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Guest shiloh357

I have to disagree. The only focus I am seeing is "6 24-hour time frames or the highway."
  Because that is the only part of it you want to see.   Creationism makes a direct link between the Gospel and Genesis.

 

More so, the Gospel I am hearing is a Gospel of legalism.
  Prove it.   Show one thing I have posted that is legalistic.  I defy you to produce one exmaple of legalism I have promoted.

 

The only study or interpretation of Genesis 1 I read that actually linked the Gospel and Genesis 1 was your study on

No one has to believe any particular time frames to believe what the Bible says in that light.
But that study is simply about how the different days of creation reveal things about us as new creations in Christ.   It was not meant to be an alternative to YEC or to present the creation week in way that alleviates any need to interpret Genesis literally.  It was meant to show that the Bible isn't science book, and to present a theological way of understanding the creation story.

 

It's not so much about making the Bible fit science as it is refuting the insistence that we have to interpret the 6 days of creation to be 144 hours long.

 

So when you post things on WBs, is it okay for me to interpret your words the way I want to?  Can I decide the meanings of your words in a way that works for me and then assign things to you that you never said based my interpretation of what you said?  Can I ignore the literal meaning you wanted to convey and decide that it is up to me to decide what you meant? 

 

This is where you are horribly, horribly wrong, Shiloh. And it breaks my heart that you would accuse me of trying to prove the Bible's narrative as unreliable.

 

I am not accusing you personally, but I am making a comment about the anti-creationists/theistic evolutionists.  The quotation you provided had to do with creation vs. evolution, not OEC vs. YEC.

 

The point is that there are those who whle demanding that the Bible isn't a science book still continue to try and make the Bible fit with science, and they use science to interpret the Bible.   Science becomes the standard that the Bible must conform to in order to even be taken seriously.

 

I'm not. In fact, the only thing that makes sense to me is to remove any attempt to fit what scientists have studied of the earth's history into the Genesis 1 account because Genesis 1 was never about the scientific account, nor was it meant to be interpreted through Hellenistic scientific eyes.

 

What I am seeing is that the Bible isn't a science book when it comes to YEC claims.  A number of people on the boards are posting exactly why the think the Bible supports a OEC framework.  So it isn't a science book in order to refute YEC but then suddenly becomes helpful for the OEC view.  Kind of a double standard I see emerging in these threads.

 

I do hope you understand that the debate over the age of the earth and the debate over evolution are not the same debate?
 

 

Yes, which is why I brought up the point that you are offering up a quote about evolution/creation in a thread that is not about that debate.   And for the record Billy Graham is wrong.

 

Why are you accusing me of this, Shiloh? Have I ever said anything negative like that about Billy Graham?
 

 

So many  on this board have bemoaned theologians in general and theology so many times in the past.  I can remember threads where you and yod expressed all kinds of negative feelings about theology and I find it interesting that suddenly theology becomes useful. 

 

And really, is there something wrong with posting a quote when someone expresses a concept in a better way than you yourself could come up with?

 

The quote wasn't even about the topic under consideration.

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Shiloh, this is me you're talking to, not Idol Smasher.

 

And I am baffled that you would drag Yod into this in that way.

 

Are you so obsessed with winning a debate that you would tear apart friendships?

 

 

 

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Shiloh, this is me you're talking to, not Idol Smasher.

 

And I am baffled that you would drag Yod into this in that way.

 

Are you so obsessed with winning a debate that you would tear apart friendships?

interesting question

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Guest shiloh357

Shiloh, this is me you're talking to, not Idol Smasher.

 

And I am baffled that you would drag Yod into this in that way.

 

Are you so obsessed with winning a debate that you would tear apart friendships?

 

I am sorry, I didn't mean it the way it came off to you. 

 

 

I wasn't dragging yod into anything. 

 

I was simply noting the selective usefulness of theology that exists on this board.   Theology is usually "yuck" on this board.  I was simply noting that theologians are usually denigrated as unrelatable, obsessed with knowledge at the expense of the Holy Spirit and theology is pretty much seen as belong in dry dusty libraries and having no real world relevance to how Christians live.  I just thought it was interesting to see when theologians suddenly become useful. 

 

 

It's nothing personal, just an observation.  

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I accept your words.

But please understand, Shiloh, that when I pull others words, it is because I have weak debating skills (as you can tell), and I have a hard time expressing my thoughts into words quite often. So I look for owrds that express my thoughts in ways that seem better to me than what I can scrounge together.
 
As for quoting Billy Graham, I also had this in the back of my mind:
 

I have found a lot of religionists who are evolutionists. I have not found that a lot of "belevers" who claim evolution also tend to question the Bible's authority in other areas. They tend to support gay marriage, abortion, and deny the inerrancy and accuracy of Scripture. None of that is surprising since they have already established the low estimation they have for the Bible in the first place.


His words echo my thoughts that this fight loses focus from the God as Creator and Redeemer and onto a battle of science as a god that is a challenge to the belief in God, which creates myriads of problems. More on that later. (P.S. Atheists, Agnostics, and the like are not putting their faith in science, but in human reasoning and intellect; science is merely a tool.)


As for evolution, actually that was not me that who brought that into this debate. It's brought into the argument there on page 1 of this thread.


Now, what are the problems I mentioned?

I mentioned this

 

I will re-post these two points:

 

• But when a Christian who thinks "believing the Bible requires belief in a young earth" examines the scientific evidence (as in AGE OF THE EARTH: SCIENCE) and concludes "the earth is old" and then "if the Bible is wrong about the earth's age, maybe it's also wrong about the rest," faith can be weakened or abandoned, as described in Personal Experiences of Former Young-Earth Creationists (17 k) which contains quotations from (and links to) their web-pages.


Why can young-earth rigidity be harmful to Christian faith? by Greg Neyman (6 k), who says you can be a Christian and believe in an old earth (13 k) and explains (6 k) how to become a Christian.  In his pages about relationships and arguments he has a good attitude toward young-earth creationists, and he is trying to improve relationships between devout, theologically conservative Christians who differ mainly in their conclusions about age of the earth.  (6 k and 3 k)

 

 

This insistence that one has to make themselves believe the earth is 6000 years old in order to maintain Biblical integrity has become a huge stumbling block to many people from looking into the reality of Jesus, and it has torn many young people from the faith as they faced convincing challenges that the YEC arguments become weak against.

 

 

Again, science is not the problem; science is merely a tool. Yes, it has its imperfections, but highlighting the imperfections to disclaim whatever science produces that you do not agree with is truly a poor debate tactic.

 

 

When scientists perform analysis of data and run their calculations, they cannot (or at least should not) reject the conclusions just because it goes against a particular belief. But Creationists are guilty of picking the "science" they like and discarding the "science" they do not like the same as other humans are guilty of doing with other things (i.e. picking and chosing theologians).

 

 

More thoughts in the next post.

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As I asked previously:

 

If Matthew's skipping of generations in his genealogy and claiming "14 generations" can be considered Bibilically sound, why cannot some slack in the interpretation of the "days" of Genesis 1 be likewise be considered Biblically sound?

 

 

The geneologies given in the OT are used as evidence for the 6000 year dating of humanity's existence on the earth, but yet we see such things as this in the geneologies.
 

As evidence the genealogies are telescoped (compressed or abbreviated), scholars point to examples such as the genealogy of Moses, which appears four separate times in Scripture (Exodus 6:16-20, Numbers 26:57-59, 1 Chronicles 6:1-3, 23:6-13). Moses’ genealogy is given as Levi to Kohath to Amran to Moses. As straightforward as this seems, related Bible passages suggest that several generations were likely skipped between Amram and Moses.26 1 Chronicles 7:20-27 provides a parallel genealogy of Ephraim, son of Joseph (brother of Levi), from the same period of history as the Mosaic genealogies. While only 4 generations are listed from Levi to Moses, 12 generations listed from Joseph to Joshua during the same time period.

 

MOSES’ GENEALOGY JOSHUA’S GENEALOGY Levi Joseph Kohath Ephraim Amran Beriah   Raphah   Resheph   Telah   Tahan   Ladan   Ammihud   Elishama   Nun Moses Joshua

 

Source

 

 

Is it not possible that there are generation gaps that we are not able to catch by comparing other geneological records, especially in the geneologies between Adam and Noah? Considering the ages these men lived before having children, leaving out 5 names could amount to leaving out 500 - 1000 years.

 

 

Keeping things "literal" as we interpret "literal" creates a lot of hurdles that our "literal" mindset has a hard time grasping.

 

 

So why is it sound theology to accept these gaps - and Matthew's "14 generations" - as "literal" but not sound theology to accept a non-24 hour expression of yom in Genesis 1?

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So to address the challenge of how a Christian can believe in something other than a 6000 year old earth and something longer than a 6-day creation yet stand by the historicity of Gen. 2-11 and the truth of Jesus' death and resurrection?

 

 

I looked at the hisorical context in which Genesis was given.

 

Firstly, we don't know what revelation God gave to Adam about how He created the eretz (or even if God revealed to him that the "land" was a part of a planetary globe), nor do we know what happened to the original revelation down through the ages and myriands of languages, cultures, and religions. But we do know what creation stories existed in other cultures of the time Genesis was penned, the accounts the Israelites would have had been exposed to beforehand.

 

One could argue that the revelation God gave to Moses was the original revelation re-given. This would mean that the accounts the other religions had by that time had not changed all that much from the original.

 

But one can likewise argue that God gave a revelation of Creation that the people could grasp based on what their understanding of reality was. That doesn't claim He revealed something that was not true, just that He presented the facts to them in a way that they would grasp, and also in a way that would get across to them the points He wanted them to know.

 

A couple of examples:

 

Other religions speak of sea monsters creating things; God spoke of creating those sea monsters.

 

Other relgions worship the sun and moon as gods; God called them the "greater light" and "lesser light" because the only words they had for these objects were the god-names of them. (That is, God doesn't say He created Ra - as far as I can tell what the Egyptians called "the sun" - He says He created "the greater light", not even acknowledging the name of the false god, and thus by its inference denying that the sun is a god at all.)

 

 

Likewise, I have read the interpretations that point out the pattern of separating and then filling.

 

~~

 

Thus, I read Genesis 1 for the beauty of its presentation, for the wonder that beauty brings forth, and the theology these things draw out.

 

I do not read Genesis to intepret the age of the earth.

 

 

And I take Genesis' "day" as literaly as I take Matthew's "14 generations."

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I don't see logic in stating that if you don't believe in a young earth then it follows that you also do not believe....fill in the blanks or reread the posts

 

I don't believe in evolution and I also do not believe in a young earth.

 

I don't believe either that Scripture is a handbook on science but I don't believe that science contradicts the Bible...science is changing all the time anyway in field after field...God's word does not

change...how would Moses have explained the atom?  Science is not complete and all there is to know about God is not in the Bible.

 

I am just kind of shaking my head on some of the things that have been stated regarding what one MUST believe or they somehow make the Bible untrue...if that were so, then the Bible would be

'untrue' to countless Christains who are not aware of all that is in Scripture, so, on that account, they don't believe the whole thing.

 

If that does not make sense, then you know what I think regarding the arguement that if you do not believe the earth is only 6000 yrs old, you reject the Bible or the truth contained therein

 

 

 

Creationism DOES put the focus on Jesus.

 

Actually, I believe the focus is on God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit at creation.  The Bible answers who made us and why ... how sin entered the world and how to accept what God has done to allow us to come

once again into His presence....the Bible does not read like a novel.

 

The entire Bible puts the focus on Jesus...I really cannot think why believing the earth is old takes the focus off Jesus at creation or anywhere else in scripture

 

I prob said enough

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It is definitely a volatile subject.  I do think we should avoid differentiating micro and macro evolution, however, since by definition they follow the same mechanisms.  And I can see why animals and plants evolve, yet humans were specially created at the zenith of God's creation.

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It is definitely a volatile subject.  I do think we should avoid differentiating micro and macro evolution, however, since by definition they follow the same mechanisms.  And I can see why animals and plants evolve, yet humans were specially created at the zenith of God's creation.

 

No they don't!

 

This equation is a Observable, Measurable, Repeatable, and is a Scientific FACT:

 

1. "Micro"-evolution: Change in Allele Frequency/Genetic Varation

Natural Selection + Genetic Variation =  This is (Humans: Tall/Short, Green Eyes/Blue Eyes, Dark Skin/Light Skin, Puerto Rican/ Greenland Eskimo ... Dogs: Big/Small, Short hair/Long hair, Boxer/Collie) THEY'RE STILL DOGS and HUMANS!

 

 

This Equation is an Epic Fairytale with NO PROOF (ZERO).

 

2. "Macro"- evolution: "Bacteria to Boy Scout"....

Natural Selection + Random Mutations + Billions of years =  darwinian evolution

 

For "macro" (New Organs/Organisms) you need NEW INFORMATION.  You ain't getting it from equation 1.  Therefore.....For neo darwinian evolution ("Macro"),  you need millions of beneficial mutations over thousands of generations that also need to become fixated in the mean time overwhelming all the deleterious ones. You need NEW INFORMATION----- leading to unequivocal New Traits, Organs, and Organisms.  The notion with Mutations of this nature and magnitude is preposterous, genetically speaking.

 

And, if they were the same mechanism then why in the world would you have a World Conference comparing and contrasting the two?  Note the last sentence.....

 

Chicago Field Museum of Natural History conference on 'Macroevolution'

 

"The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution.  At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No."

Roger Lewin, Science(Vol.201(4472):883-887,1980.)

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