The flood, and meat eating.

Well, the whole no-meat-eating thing is pretty far "out there".I spent decades in evangelical churches and I never heard of such an outlandish idea except on the Internet.I think it's an example of how the creos want to change everything, whether it's necessary to their scenario or not. Apparently, nobody but them can ever be right about anything.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

"Cursed is the ground" refers to the ground in the garden.Adam and Eve were cursed by being removed from their idyllic state in the garden, by being sent outside the garden. There is no reason to think that there was a change in the world outside the garden. "The Curse" was a geographical change, not a physical change.In any case, where does the Bible say anything about The Fall^TM being the start of meat-eating?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Ya think? Perhaps? Chapter and verse?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

We had an interesting discussion in another thread, as to how man's gaining the "knowledge of good and evil" could be a "darkening" of consciousness. It seems to me to be more of an an enlightenment, and I haven't heard any sensible argument to the contrary.More on topic, it frankly still baffles me that anybody could think that there was a huge change in biology at The Fall^TM.Since this is actually a science forum, could we perhaps have some evidence? For instance, fossil evidence of a time when no meat-eaters existed?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Well, that was the focus of our discussion in the other thread. In fact, "the text" - i.e. Genesis - doesn't say much, if anything, about physical changes in the creation.But that's another topic. I was trying to be gentle by not drawing attention to your "slippery time" concept. I'm afraid it doesn't wash, but I'll leave it to the scientists to straighten you out on that.My point is that we do have fossil evidence going back to the beginning of life, and geological evidence before that. Even if time did its little ballet, as you suggest, there should still be some evidence of "the change" in the rocks.Your "theory" appears to be just smoke and mirrors, intended to hand-wave away the complete lack of evidence for no meat-eating.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Sheer ad hocery.You're invoking a miracle to explain away the fact that you have no evidence.We "assume" linear time because we have no reason to assume non-linear time. If you think time somehow magically erased all the evidence at some point, you need evidence for that too.I repeat: this is a science forum. You need evidence that there was a time when there were no meat-eaters. If you invoke a "wrinkle in time" to erase the evidence, you still need evidence that such a wrinkle is possible and evidence that such an erasure did happen (at exactly the right moment for your convenience). Occam's Razor is cutting your throat.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Maybe you should show us where Einstein's concepts of relativity account for the erasure of geological evidence.Let me recap:1. You asserted that there were no meat eaters before The Fall.2. I asked you for evidence to support that assertion.3. You asserted that a "time warp", or something, had erased the evidence.4. I asked you for evidence to support that assertion.I have only said that we have no reason to assume any weirdness in the absence of evidence of any weirdness. I don't think the guidelines require me to disprove every miracle that you invoke. You could use the 'weirdness of time" ploy to explain away any lack of evidence.Once again: where is your evidence?Back up your idea that there were no meat eaters before The Fall.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Yes, I disagree with that. Yes, I have a problem with that.But this is not a Faith and Belief thread. This is a science thread, so we are looking at how science relates to the Bible. No. We still have the actual evidence. No need to speculate.All of your gibberish about time is irrelevant. I asked you to show us where Einstein said anything about time erasing physical evidence.Does your time "theory" erase evidence or not? If it does, how is it any different from any other miracle?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Randman,The Bible Accuracy and Inerrancy forum is concerned with whether or not the Bible is accurate with respect to the real world. You need evidence from the real world, outside the Bible.Your "god is outside time" hypothesis is not evidence. You need to give us something -anything - to show us that what you are saying has some reality to it.Without evidence, your contentions about meat-eating are just unsupported opinions. They belong in the Faith and Belief forum, not here.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Actually, the OP deals with a question about flesh-eating plants. The topic has drifted a bit. Of course not. Where did I ever say that?I'm asking you to provide evidence that there was ever a time in the history of the world in which no animals ate meat. But it was placed here. If you don't like the constraints of the science forums, then don't post here. You can't just change the rules because you think the topic is in the wrong forum. No. The first step, as always in science (see Percy's thread), is to look at the evidence. Where is it? Well, I don't see the scientists flocking to your side. My point is that your whole "time travel" scenario - or whatever you want to call it - is not a valid excuse for having no evidence.If you want to argue that God could move around through time and do things without "recalling" all the animals, then that is a different thread.In this thread, we are talking about whether or not animals have always been meat-eaters. The "nature of existence" is off topic.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

No, no and no.The topic is "The flood, and meat eating". That is the only topic to which evidence is relevant here.Your evasion could be applied to any topic. How do we know anything actually happened?Ever hear of Last-Thurdayism? God could have created the world last Thursday and made it look like it's 4.55 billion years old. Similarly, one of your blips in the space-time continuum could have disrupted everything we think we know.The problem with your "theory" is that it's perfectly useless. If you can "poof" the evidence out of existence at your convenience, we can't ever know anything.Stop being evasive.The onus is not on me to prove that evidence can not vanish in a puff of time-travel. The onus is on you to provide evidence to back up your "theory".But that is not even the topic here. The topic is "The flood, and meat eating." Show us the evidence that there was no meat-eating before the Flood and/or The Fall.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

False dichotomy. You are ignoring at least one alternative - and a more obvious one:The Bible's "claims of death beginning with Adam's sin" are symbolic.Adam is symbolic of all mankind. "For all have sinned...." We are responsible for our own sins. We can't blame Adam for them and we can't claim that the Bible blames Adam either.That is what the Bible appears to say "on the face of it", and there is no need for a vegetarian-to-carnivorous "poof".But that discussion belongs in Faith and Belief and the quantum mechanical discussions belong in a different forum too.Stop evading the issue. Either show us some evidence that there was a time before meat-eating, or admit that you have no evidence.This message has been edited by Ringo316, 2005-07-27 09:59 AM

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Uh uh. "Does not work for me" is not good enough. This is not an opinion forum. If the sensible, symbolic reading "does not work" for you, tell us why it doesn't.(And there is no need to smear my interpretation by calling it "merely" symbolic. A symbolic interpretation can be more meaningful than a made-up "literal" one - as well as more majestic. Nor is it necessary to call my approach an "unbelieving" approach. It is only your made-up version that I don't believe.)

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Look at it this way:Do we have any evidence that the world is not flat? Or do we just have evidence that the world is round?Similarly, do we need evidence that there was no meat-eating at one time? Since all the evidence we have indicates that there has always been meat-eating, why is that evidence not sufficient?Try to understand: science deals with positive evidence - not a lack of negative evidence.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Where did I say anything about symbolic death? I said that Adam is symbolic of all mankind.Of course Paul was talking about literal, physical death. So am I.The story of Adam, to which Paul was referring, is an explanation of why we die physically. It is also an explanation of why we are responsible for our sins - because we have the knowledge of good and evil.The story has symbolic importance far greater than any historical value that it may or may not have.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.