Pope: Creationism, Evolution Not at Odds

[RedNick261]

we render judgments on those who claim to be inside the faith...ANYONE who mocks or calls into the question God puts themselves in an extremely dangerous position, and may be self deceived about being in the faith...God threatened to KILL Job's friends for such an offense

Scripture? Logic? ANYTHING to defend this statement?

really?

Hebrews 4

...says absolutely NOTHING to defend your point. You won't find anything to defend your assertion because it is indefensible.

your logic is worthless, what does that have to do with the Biblical account?

You're saying that the characteristics of one subject must apply to all related subjects. In the same way that all Bible stories are Scripture, they are not all the same. They all have different intentions, audiences, authors, situations, genre... different characteristics. Much the same as we are all human beings, but we are not all assigned the same characteristics based on the characteristics of one. My example was simply an attempt to show you how absurd and illogical your assertion is that all Scripture must be discarded if one is not to take Genesis 1 (or 2) literally. Absolutely absurd and ignorant.

no, you fail to believe the truth, that's not my problem

And yet you've shown nothing to prove this. In fact, I think that you, by assigning the characteristic of truth to something unproven (and untrue), you are the one who doesn't believe the truth. And that, my friend, IS your problem.

[hepatocyte]

general question for the "millions of years" proponents:

will God take a few "million years" to create again, after the 1,000 year Kingdom?

If He wishes to.

The sun is also said to have stood still. Don't tell you you're a proponent of geocentrism.

[RedNick261]

again, there is nothing to suggest the Genesis record is anything but a historical narrative, many other scriptures attest to that fact

Your lack of proof speaks volumes for your argument.

[RedNick261]

Your lack of proof speaks volumes for your argument.

I've found liberals are never satisfied with evidence from the scripture, because they attempt to harmonize their idolatrous secular beliefs with the scripture

like I said, Exodus 20...how can the 10 Commandments be "allegory"??

Have I ever claimed that the 10 commandments are allegorical? No, I have not. You haven't offered any Scriptural evidence. Were you to do so, I would consider it. If your use was within its context and intent, I would accept and admit defeat. However, that has yet to happen and will not happen for a combination of reasons that I shall refrain from discussing further.

Also, dude, on a personal note, I'm FAR from a liberal.

[RedNick261]

Have I ever claimed that the 10 commandments are allegorical? No, I have not. You haven't offered any Scriptural evidence. Were you to do so, I would consider it.

so we can agree this passage is NOT allegorical?

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Why does the emphasized section of that verse necessarily speak to the literality of Genesis 1 (or 2)? Why would it do so, despite the evidence? Or, perhaps, since the 10 Commandments were directed at the Hebrew people, it would reference allegory to communicate a more important point? I guess, if you want to be incredibly nitpicky, you could say that I would say that the reference made in the commandment is to an allegory. Does that somehow negate the Commandments? Not at all. I do, also, find it interesting that the only of the 10 Commandments not observed by the disciples or apostles (or the first church, that we know of) and that was actually disobeyed by Christ himself would be your choice to reference here. Nice.

[RedNick261]

Anyone else care to join in this discussion?

[CaritateDei]

Anyone else care to join in this discussion?

Yeah. I ask the extreme literalists which account of creation is the one the Pope or anyone should use? Should he use the first, or the second?

How do we know that it was a 24 hour day when the timepiece that determines length of days wasn't created until day four?

I have no problem with people who take Genesis literally. It is not going to affect your faith as long as you know that God is the creator. Literalists, then, should have no problem with belief that God is the hand that creates and guides evolution.

Not Darwinism, but some kind of evolution...

After all, is it harmful to acknowledge that God is the creator? Is it harmful to speculate on how he created it?

None of us can tell God how to be God...

[sweetycakes]

I believe that God created the world in six days. Six literal days.

Why?

Because, although no humans were present at the time, God later revealed it to his prophets through His Word.

He knew what we would understand as to the meaning of the word 'Day'. God communicates to us in our language. He understands the word 'day', and 'week' and 'a thousand years'......as we would understand it.

He could easily have said 'I created the world in six thousand years' or 'over millions of years'....and people would have understood him.

But He said He created it in six days. That is good enough for me.

He could have created it in the blink of an eye if He wanted.

But He said He created it in six days.

Quite often, I have found......as our knowledge of the Bible (the Word of God) increases.....as we go along, and learn more...we find out that God knew EXACTLY what He was talking about......to the letter!

[Datan]

Although this may not be the best place to draw any hope for a reasonable answer -- when I first came here a month ago, I explained about the lack credible teachers in my catholic grade school -- my eight grade homeroom/Theology/English teacher explained to us during a lesson -- while the unpleasant-ness of the room was happening all around us, mind you -- that we (the students) could hold our beliefs on evolution, but only as long as we gave the credit to God.

At the time I couldn't have cared less. The classroom was too shoddy for me, and I couldn't take the teacher seriously. And I was busy asking my table if they had certain pages missing out of my English book in theirs, so I could actually do my homework.

Well, whatever. Like I said before, I didn't care at the time, so my brain stored that little nugget under the file of 'burned-out morphine addict,' and moved on.

Recently I bought my first bible, and two days ago I started to read Genesis; aside from the fact that I found it confusing [being an avid reader, I was actually put off that I had such hard time with it at points], that little nugget of information popped back inside of my head. So I put the book down, and I just sat there trying to make sense of the conflict.

An idea came to me some time later: could a day in God's time {i.e. the bible's time} be a few million years in earthly time? The bible mentions nothing of dinosaurs, for example, but we knew they existed because of fossils, and we know how old they are because of carbon dating.

Of course this is only a rheorical question; one that can only be answered with a 'Yeah, that's possible. Good job, Datan!' or 'You're a crazy ... boy? You're a boy, right?'

Furthermore, about the dinosaurs, maybe God put them in somewhere between the third and fourth day. I have no idea.

[RedNick261]

Horizon, I'm not going to waste my time responding to your entire post. I do, however want to ask you one question.

Give me some scriptures to study that show the Bible teaches the earth is billions of years old.

Show me one Scripture that claims that the Genesis account is a literal history. You can't do that. But thanks for playing.

But if Darwinian evolution is not true then why should Christians accept it as truth?

You really have no idea what Darwin's studies produced, do you?

But don