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Author Topic:   Creation
Granny Magda
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Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
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Message 347 of 1482 (815703)
07-23-2017 10:09 AM
Reply to: Message 341 by Tom Larkin
07-22-2017 8:38 PM


Re: Alignment Evolution and Genesis
Hi Tom and welcome to EvC.
I have to say, I find your starting assumptions problematic, even taking into account that they are aimed at a primarily Christian audience (rather than atheists such as myself).
G1 - the Bible is the word of God (the current 66 books)
Okay. I understand that you see it that way. Still, this seems a little sparse; is every word supposed to be the perfect unfiltered, inerrant word of God? Could the fallibility of the human messengers not have skewed the message? Not even a little? This seems like an awfully large assumption to takes as one's starting point.
G2 - any scripture must be interpreted in light of all scripture, no scripture may be "privately interpreted"
This is just a flat-out terrible assumption. I can hardly imagine a notion more likely to lead to misunderstandings of these texts. The books of the Bible were written by different people, at different times and in disparate cultures. Treating them otherwise is a guaranteed route to error.
E8: A lack of archaeological evidence does not prove that something did not exist (e.g. both King David and the city of Troy were thought to be myths until evidence of their existence was uncovered)
I can't help but note that this is less a piece of evidence and more an excuse for why you can't produce certain pieces of evidence.
Whilst this argument is true in principle, in practice, it doesn't hold true with all examples. Not being able to find a needle in a haystack does not necessarily mean that there is no needle. Failure to find an elephant in that same haystack is pretty darn good evidence that there is no elephant. I can only agree with PaulK in seeing the flood as being an area where we should expect to see evidence (spoiler alert! - there isn't any).
D3: The creation described in Genesis 1 is not contradictory to our understanding of the evolutionary process.
That... just ain't true. The account in Gen 1 has plants as the first created life. The fossil record shows us that this is far from the case, with plants only appearing much later. This claim falls at the first hurdle.
I sympathise with where you're coming from. It must be galling to see your fellow Christians reject what you see as valid science. I just don't think that you have quite thought this through. I don't think that you appreciate the width of the gulf between the Biblical accounts and what science tells us of our past and I think that you have perhaps failed to appreciate the extent to which the notion of a vast supernatural power invalidates the scientific method.
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

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 Message 341 by Tom Larkin, posted 07-22-2017 8:38 PM Tom Larkin has not replied

  
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