The Problems with Genesis: A Christian Evolutionist's View

only animals that are ancestors of humans are listed

5. The contradictions you see are giant signs for the comprehensive reader to notice, stop reading, and think.
That you are finding contradictions between what you read previously and what you come across later tells you you did not correctly understand the first and earlier statements.It testifies as evidence that you're are not understanding the story correctly.6. This is why you are confused and read so poorly.
In your mind you are pre-set psychologically to compare the interpretations you have heard with what the Bible and science tells.You are not independently reading, but trying to superimpose these teaching you have heard over the text and context of the scriptures.You are really complaining about what these other teachings say, not what the Bible says.1. The Cosmos was created in six "days" that were very long durations on the order of eras millions of years long.
You comprehension here failed because you did not know the dictionary meaning of the Hebrew word for day, "yowm," does not necessarily apply to a 24 hour duration.2. This thinking noted above is what confused you about the creation of Light, where you assumed that Genesis was referring to sun light.If you have researched the Big Bang expansion, you would have discovered that there was NO visible light at first.
The universe was too hot for neutral Atoms to form yet.
Visible light comes from only neutral Atoms. Hence there was a 400 million year State-of-Cosmic Darkness.
That Cosmic Darkness ended just as the stars first formed.3. Again, you fail Reading Comprehension.
Genesis does NOT say that the sun was "created" on the 4th "day" (era).
It clearly says god made the sun authority over the Solar Clock, the Stars the authority over Sidereal Time, and the Moon was given authority to keep the time of the monthly calendar.4. The order is correct, that fish, reptiles, amphibians, and the birds which are actually the progeny of dinosaurs appeared before the mammals and cattle which the Hebrew words used actually refer to.

Understanding the story correctly does not mean twisting it into knots in an attempt to get rid of the contradictions.

1. That we are alerted with the inordinate use of the evening and the morning" expressions draws my attention to the possiblity that something is strange in this case about the normal idea of a "day."2. Since the Earth day was not created until four of these evening and mornings had already passed, I realize that "a day to the lord can be like a 1000 years," or whatever.3.I realize that the Bible writers would have had to avoid saying "and that was "the evening of the Hadean Era and the morning of the Archean era," simply because these facts would not be known to the readers until this last century.4. These opportunities to understand the Bible as literally true "makes me think the evening-and-morning language does not specify a normal series of 24 hour days" as opposed to the other personal and subjective choice to oppose logic, common sense, reason, and scientific facts.

Of course that is true, and merely choosen to understand the Hebrew word as "a long duration" is no more "twisting" than intentionally choosing "24 hour Earth day," which is clearly erroneous, contradictory, and against all Truth and Modern Science.

It is twisting, because in Hebrew, when the word is deliniated, the intention is always meant strictly as a 24 hour period.

Choosing your favorite definition most certainly is twisting the text. It has been expained ad nauseam in many topics on this forum that the "day" as it is used in Genesis 1 does always refer to a 24-hour period. You are ignoring the plain meaning of the word in an attempt to reconcile something to reality that cannot be reconciled. Yes, Genesis 1 is erroneous, contradictory and contary to modern science. So is the notion of absolute "Truth".

LOlYou guys start the discussion saying your position is : "Genesis 1 is erroneous, contradictory and contary to modern science."And I enter saying, "The story corresponds exactly with science given the need to couch it in terms that are indirect, but recognizably referring to the same genral unfolding of the Cosmos."Then you elect yourselves the judge of whether what I say is acceptable to you, condemn it, (LOL), and pretend to have won the discuaaion. (hahaaaa).Please.
Let the lurking readers be the judge and you guys try to respond with evidence that isn't pickiune and trival.

That's a cop-out.You simply cannot defend your position without deviating from the facts.What you claim about science is not even remotely close to it. Now that your factless claims have been rejected by everyone you have approached with them you are going to invent an imaginary audience in which there is a silent majority who has fallen for your bullshit?Lame.

There is no such thing as "Absolute Truth."There is that which is true, and everything else is a lie or an error in thinking about the Ideal of Truth.Truth is an ideal, like Love or Wisdom is an Ideal.
But Truth exists whether man exists or does not, because the definition of Truth is merely that it corresponds with what is Real.Truth is the image of Reality, and is congruent to that Reality, one-to-one.

Yes. But why is there that "need"? Why can't the Bible just be wrong? Why do you "need" to force a square Bible into a round scientific hole? Amen to that.

There's no such thing as an "Ideal of Truth" either. There's just a pile of things that are true or partially true. Love and wisdom are both practical factors in human life. Idealizing them has little value. I can accept that as a working definition. Genesis is not true because it doesn't correspond to what is real. By trying to force it to correspond you are, in fact, bending the truth. Remember that an image is not the real thing and therefore is not necessarily congruent to reality on a one-to-one basis. For example, my avatar is a two-dimensional image of a three-dimensional reality.If you would learn to read Genesis as an image of reality instead of as reality, you'd get a lot closer to the "truth".

They wouldn't be known to the writers either! And if God magically poofed that knowledge into the writers' minds, then he could have done it to the readers too. As you have it, God has tricked all those ancient Jews and is a prankster. Why are you assuming that the Bible is literally true?It should be obvious to you from all the mental gymnastics that you have to go through, that it actually isn't and you're just doing what you have to in order to make it look like it is. But you're only fooling yourself.

Of course there is am ideal concept of Truth because theree is one Reality to which Truth corrrsponds one-to-one by definition.The Bible does agree with you, that there are two kinds of people.
Those like you, who deny Truth and say it does not exist.
And ther are people who can image Truth mentally in their mind and recognize it as corresponding to Reality in the form of the Facts of Life.
Today, Empirical Scientists are on that side of the fence, now.John 14:17
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Of course Tuth is not Reality anymore than the son is the father, but for man, we can not tell the difference between the two.In fact Truth can become a mental model inside our head which we interact with in the faith and belief that one is the other.Kant explained this idea for us in the early 19th century.