Genesis: is it to be taken literally?

You may refer to the site if you find it useful.The guidelines just point out that it is you that must support anything you post.The hovind references stir both the non believer and most of the believers up for about the same reason. It is junk. It is annoying to have such foolishness promogated and the religious don't like having their religion made to look so foolish.The reason for warning you about it is because many people here are already familiar with it and have had a lot of practise ripping it to pieces. You won't do yourself much good if you try to depend on it for answers to the questions you will get.I know you don't believe what I'm saying but I can assure you that there are things you don't know. Lots and lots.

Oh dear! ok, you may have trouble believing me with this but I will try.That is exactly the kind of thing that makes Hovind look so utterly stupid. He has had plenty of time to get that kind of thing right. The fact that he might ever mention such a thing make him dishonest.This is complete and utter rot! You have been lied to! Big time!It is very off topic for here I'm afraid. Liability of the Theory that the law of Angular Momentum disproves Big bang.I'll add a bit to the end for you but I think it should be well covered in that thread.

I guess you have to pick one of two choices then:1) You ignore the evidence collected over centuries and maintain your view based on belief only.2) You examine the actual evidence and reasoningThere may be one of two outcomes:A)You can find a flaw in it that allows your belief about evolution (and timing of man's appearance etc.) to stand. We would be very interested in this since no one manages to be very convincing. The last resort (for the few that stick it out at all) is that God is actually Loki (the mischievious god of the Norse who lies).B) You may realize that based on the available evidence the only conclusion is that of the current scientific consensus. This does not have to do any damage to your religious beliefs if you have a half way sophisticated theology like the majority of Christians.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 11-28-2004 12:49 PM

How about getting the age of the earth sorted out then?Could you start by explaining the correlations discuss in this thread? Age Correlations and an Old Earth

Take your time then. That beats rushing off too soon.That particular thread is not just about radiometric dating, some of it is just about counting things.Note as you read, the big deal is correlation between all of them. That is what needs to be explained.

If this is your theology, it you postulate a God who can do anything and would willfully set intellectual traps for us then there is, of course, no arguing with that. Given your assumption about the power and nature of God the only accomodation would be to preface all of science with "God fools us into thinking that...".This is, of course, the only answer that those who both insist on the literistic interpretation of the Bible and do actually get a tiny hint of the evidence against that interpretation. This is also very poor theology and rejected by the majority of theologians.This is one of the reasons why the majority of Christians disagree with you and why some would say you belong, not to a branch of Christianity, but to a cult that brings upon true Christianity Disrespect, distaste and frequently amused laughter.

Now you have, if you are intellectually honest, to figure out how to filter out the honest attempts to answer questions about the natural world and the lies (if willful) or untruths (if resulting from error).There are, posting here, experts in a number of the fields of science. It will be a problem for you, but I can assure you that there will be no willful untruths given to you.I can also assure you that there are far to many cases where the creationists source do actually lie.Perhaps rather than get deep into physics that might be hard for most of us you could pick some simpler cases where relatively simple math would be adequate.There are many good reasons why we do not have to just "assume" that the speed of light has been constant for at least long enough to put the young earth idea to a peaceful rest. Some are more accessible than others.However, I suggest that some of the dates and dating issues might be simpler. (there can be some physics there too but maybe it can be put off for awhile). The flood and it's sea shells is another one.Now you have to sort out one from the other.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 11-29-2004 11:38 PM

I think we'd all agree with you that once you postulate a god he can operate outside the laws to do the creation.However, that is not the point being made at all; the point is that the nature of the creation, things embedded in it suggest a particular pattern of the history of that creation.If that is not the actual pattern then those things are misleading. They are so misleading and so very, very extensive that they can only be called a trick, a prank, a joke and completely dishonest.

The god called Ford has left much in the way of records of the creation process. I've seen TV films of it. I've read a lot of company material and company history. They are all consistent with what the finished product is like and with each other.In the case of life and the universe, the other God left lots and lots of evidence. It is all consistant with a particular pattern.You are the one trying to say it is false evidence.

You are right about analogy limits.We have now gone from an analogy about taking genesis literally and therefore having to conclude that we are being fooled by the world around us to a completely different analogy that is discussing design. That is not the same topic at all.Now the analogy is totally useless. Mustangs (of the car type) do not breed. They are not produced through an imperfect reproductive process with the imperfections potentiall kept. Therefore the analogy is totally useless now.We have a process which as been shown to produce design like results without the input of "intelligence". However, it only works on things which reproduce though an imperfect reproductive process and are weeded out through a selection process. Therefore we can not conclude intelligent design when we see something which could have been produced through this alternative "design" process.The very important point is: "Ford Mustangs don't f**k!"Again, all of that has NOTHING to do with what we are discussing which is the discrepancy between the record left in the natural world and your interpretation of genesis. One of them is wrong.

We are not, for the moment, even discussing the creation event. That happened 13.7 Gyrs ago. We are discussing if the earth is only 6,000 years old and if all forms of life were created in a one week period.We can use all parts of creation to determine in what fashion the creation of life occured and when it happened. When the speed of light issue came up your answer was, in part, that we were being fooled because God made it that way.Our point is that if God made the tremendous numbers of individual, corrolating pieces of evidence to "make it look that way" then the only conclusion we can come to is that God is a liar.Do you still want to stick to the GMILTW (God made it look that way) argument? If so we can tell you in great detail just how God made it look. He did not make it look like it matches the Genesis account.So either your interpretation of Genesis is wrong or a huge amount of evidence has been left that makes it look wrong which we then have to explain.