In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins

[Nec5]

That’s Jesus you’re talking about. Remember?

And Moses was the vehicle for God’s will too, remember. Either a story is a story or it isn’t. Your claim is that scientific principles eliminate the supernatural happenings of the Old Testament. They apply equally to the New. Therefore, your claim must be that the Old Testament is myth but the New Testament is truth. I suppose you can make that claim just as some believe the Old and not the New, but then you can’t use the science argument because strictly following it, you can’t believe the New Testament either.

Based on faith:

Old Testament: God willed various events using human figures and prophets to do wondrous or miraculous things.
New Testament: God sent his son to do wondrous things. Christ along with the Holy Spirit used human figures (the apostles) to do wondrous things after his death.

All of these wondrous things violate the scientific principles you spent so much time detailing in an earlier post. So the question remains, why the New but not the Old? It seems to me you make the leap of faith only for the New Testament, but that doesn’t appear consistent because the authors of the New Testament refer to the Old Testament miracles as fact.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Who knows why God allowed that to happen, but He seems to have done so.

Again, wake me when you’ve proven our world is actually a fantasy realm in disguise.

You know, CS Lewis talks about people doing what you are doing (which is called a strawman argument). He says people say regarding the Devil, Oh, you expect me to believe in a man with red tights and a tail? Give me a break! (OK, Lewis put it *much *more elegantly!) with the result that people stop believing in the Devil, which is a very dangerous thing to do.

False dilemma. Not believing what the devil looks like is not equivalent to not believing in the devil at all.

Furthermore, I demand that you stop confusing my position with that of atheists. Just because I don’t believe in magical unicorns and giant sea monsters, doesn’t mean I don’t believe in what really matters in our Faith.

P.S.

Distorting my position counts as bearing false witness. Spare me your judgmental verse-quoting and take the beam out of your own eye.

And Moses was the vehicle for God’s will too, remember.

Vehicle =/= God Incarnate.

So the question remains, why the New but not the Old? It seems to me you make the leap of faith only for the New Testament, but that doesn’t appear consistent because the authors of the New Testament refer to the Old Testament miracles as fact.

Because it’s part of their culture. The thing about the New Testament is that they’re closer to historical documents while the Old Testament is hundreds of years of oral tradition. And the thing with oral tradition? They’re most if not all MYTHS. People were well capable of writing down records by the time of Jesus. The cultures that led up to the penning of the Old Testament weren’t so advanced.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Where does the Bible say that the ocean is a ceramic basin? Even metaphorically?

Does it matter if it’s ceramic? A basin is a basin. A bowl. A container. No way can you say it to describe our actual ocean. Furthermore, this is Hebrew culture. What did you think they used to make basins? Titanium?

They absolutely did not! Even in the Old Testament the earth is described as a sphere. All educated people (probably even the uneducated people) in the western world knew that the earth is a sphere since before there was any such thing as Christianity. The fact that you would recycle this myth which was invented by the 19th century anti-Catholic propagandist Washington Irving, says a lot.

Okay fine, I was a little dramatic about the flat earth. But again, the way that the Creation myth describes the formation of the sky and the sea is in direct conflict with how they actually are. The sky isn’t a ‘dome’ and our ocean isn’t a bowl.

“apparently”? You mean that the Bible does not actually literally say that, it is something you made up based on your interpretation of something in the Bible.

No. I mean the Bible LITERALLY says that.

Genesis 1:14 - Then God said: Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the seasons, the days and the years,

 

[Nec5]

Because it’s part of their culture. The thing about the New Testament is that they’re closer to historical documents while the Old Testament is hundreds of years of oral tradition. And the thing with oral tradition? They’re most if not all MYTHS. People were well capable of writing down records by the time of Jesus. The cultures that led up to the penning of the Old Testament weren’t so advanced.

Then you shouldn’t use the science argument since you can’t equally apply it to both books. Your argument is instead that the dating of both books leads one book to be more valid/truthful than the other. I don’t really see the connection there since reliability has little to do with the date a people existed in my view. I don’t think we’ll go anywhere on that point though.

I am curious though about how you reconcile the view that the Old Testament is a collection of myths and morals with the references by Christ and the Apostles to those books as a matter of fact or record. Are Christ and the Apostles just keeping up the metaphors (or the false stories of the Old Testaments as you argue) to prove a point? I assume you know what I’m talking about (i.e. Christ referencing Jonah, references to the first Adam, etc), so I won’t go digging up all those Old Testament references. Christ was just keeping up tradition and essentially deceiving people (which is theologically impossible for God/Christ) to make a larger point about the Father?

It seems to me that Paul certainly believed the stories of Moses and Egypt. Was he deceived too even though he was one of the more educated people at the time you claim is more advanced than the era of the Old Testament?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Then you shouldn’t use the science argument since you can’t equally apply it to both books. Your argument is instead that the dating of both books leads one book to be more valid/truthful than the other. I don’t really see the connection there since reliability has little to do with the date a people existed in my view. I don’t think we’ll go anywhere on that point though.

Why should I apply it to both books? You know, here I was thinking that only atheists make the mistake of reading the Bible as if it wasn’t a compilation.

The date not affecting the reliability? Now we see why yours is flawed. I believe I’ve told you this before but history is a person remembering his/her past. The farther we go, the harder it is to remember every detail. History is the same. The farther we go, the less and little we have to go upon. What we can rely on is the things that have always been. That includes the scientific laws. Gravity existed then as it does now. The chemical and physical properties of wood was the same then. It is the same now. Water was H2O then, it’s still is now. Unless you prove it otherwise, there is no way I’m ever believing that our world was once something like Middle Earth.

I assume you know what I’m talking about (i.e. Christ referencing Jonah, references to the first Adam, etc), so I won’t go digging up all those Old Testament references. Christ was just keeping up tradition and essentially deceiving people (which is theologically impossible for God/Christ) to make a larger point about the Father?

Why call it deception? Was Christ deceiving people when he told his parables? More importantly, did the people really care if the characters in them were real? See, that’s what ancient life was all about. Nobody cared about the science of it all. Other forms of knowledge were more valued and myths just happened to be a way to explain them. Look at Plato’s cave and other cases were stories were used to explain higher truths.

That doesn’t mean we disregard science now.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

What, besides magic, can explain the “laws” which science describes?

Don’t look at me. Only God knows why He made our world function the way it does.

I won’t deny saying it’s boring though. Just like most of my math and science classes. BP

St. Michael, equipped with a flame sword +1 drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden.

Yeah and apparently Egyptian sorcerers really could summon frogs.

 

[Petergee]

Does it matter if it’s ceramic? A basin is a basin. A bowl. A container. No way can you say it to describe our actual ocean. Furthermore, this is Hebrew culture. What did you think they used to make basins? Titanium?

Ok then, where in the Bible does it say that the ocean is a basin or bowl of any kind? That is a hemispherical object, not simply the ocean as we know it?

Okay fine, I was a little dramatic about the flat earth. But again, the way that the Creation myth describes the formation of the sky and the sea is in direct conflict with how they actually are. The sky isn’t a ‘dome’ and our ocean isn’t a bowl.

No. I mean the Bible LITERALLY says that.

Well if you want to play that game, there is no such thing as “the sky”. “the sky” is just an expression for the apparently dome-shaped thing that we see over our heads. Christians have never belived that it is literally a dome like the dome of St Peter’s just a few miles away with the stars merely little lights fixed to it. Even back then “the dome of the sky” never literally meant a dome.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Ok then, where in the Bible does it say that the ocean is a basin or bowl of any kind? That is a hemispherical object, not simply the ocean as we know it?

Genesis 1:9
Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear. And so it happened: the water under the sky was gathered into its basin, and the dry land appeared.

In other words, God took all the water in the world, put it in a bowl, and voila. Land.

Yeah right.

Well if you want to play that game, there is no such thing as “the sky”. “the sky” is just an expression for the apparently dome-shaped thing that we see over our heads. Christians have never belived that it is literally a dome like the dome of St Peter’s just a few miles away with the stars merely little lights fixed to it. Even back then “the dome of the sky” never literally meant a dome.

You need to review your grade school science. The sky is the layman’s term for the Earth’s atmosphere. You know? Clouds? Ozone layer? That sorta thing?

Furthermore, do you even know what a dome is shaped like? It’s not even spherical so please stop making excuses for the literalists. It’s written right there that there’s apparently a big dome over the land while above that dome is another body of water. (Don’t even get me started on that one.)

Again, when I’m looking at the creation story, I feel like I’m looking at some Discworld prototype.

 

[Robertanthony]

In one sense what does what one believes about the origins of man matter? If you don’t believe in gravity that might have some negative consequences in your life. If you don’t believe that gasoline is flammable that might have some negative consequences. But your opinions about the origin of man are basically not important apart from the metphysical implications. Of course if you don’t believe in God then there are implications to how you live your life.

What really outrages people about these results is that some people refuse to believe the ‘trusted authorities’ which is the secular popular sciences. At the end of the day one’s belief about such things is just a matter of which authority you accept since the average person has no way of validating scientific claims and no one has the ability to reproduce so called scientific claims that are really historical claims. The outrage is not over science but that you will not believe the science authority. I find this amusing since these same people will generally be outraged for people believing anything from a religious authority.

How dare you not bow reverently to the god of Science? This only goes to show that people need something/someone to worship, an authority to look up to; if you ditch God, science will gladly take over. A similar poll could have been done asking if people really believed that there was at some point in time a first human couple, and by virtue of that we all have two common ancestors. These days virtually nothing will make you lose people’s respect as quickly as professing your faith in a literal Adam and Eve (at least this is true where I hail from). All this to simply say that I think you found what the core issue was. What does it matter if people believe Adam and Eve existed 10,000, 50,000, 250,000 years ago? In this lifetime, we won’t find out exactly how and when things unfolded.

It is so obvious to me that evolution is true. Natural selection. Common descent. Clearly my dog and I have a common ancestor. We both have a head with 2 eyes a nose and mouth with teeth and a tongue, and we both have a heart, rib cage, 2 lungs, 2 ears, we both have remarkably similar digestive systems and reproductive systems, we both love eating and sleeping. Why would dogs and cats have a common ancestor but not dogs and humans? Just cuz we are smarter and more complex than them doesn’t mean we didn’t develop by the same mechanisms. And apes? Please! youtube.com/watch?v=u0WsmOhm2Qc They have hands for pete’s sake! How can anyone deny that evolution is the perfect explanation for our similarities?
youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=kva_HlMk498&feature=endscreen

I think you need to produce a picture of yourself for me to judge on the validity of your assertion.

 

[Nec5]

Why should I apply it to both books? You know, here I was thinking that only atheists make the mistake of reading the Bible as if it wasn’t a compilation.

The date not affecting the reliability? Now we see why yours is flawed. I believe I’ve told you this before but history is a person remembering his/her past. The farther we go, the harder it is to remember every detail. History is the same. The farther we go, the less and little we have to go upon. What we can rely on is the things that have always been. That includes the scientific laws. Gravity existed then as it does now. The chemical and physical properties of wood was the same then. It is the same now. Water was H2O then, it’s still is now. Unless you prove it otherwise, there is no way I’m ever believing that our world was once something like Middle Earth.

Why call it deception? Was Christ deceiving people when he told his parables? More importantly, did the people really care if the characters in them were real? See, that’s what ancient life was all about. Nobody cared about the science of it all. Other forms of knowledge were more valued and myths just happened to be a way to explain them. Look at Plato’s cave and other cases were stories were used to explain higher truths.

That doesn’t mean we disregard science now.

It’s something of a fallacy to believe that just because something is true today that it was true in the past. Quantum physics alone indicates that things aren’t nearly as consistent as your view of science would dictate. If we go back far enough, the gravity on this planet was not the same as it was today, so it really is just a question of degree rather than things always remaining the same.

And Plato’s cave was called an allegory by himself and the Greeks. People knew it was a story just as they knew Christ’s parables were made up stories to illustrate a point. When he and the apostles refer to the first Adam and Jonah, there is not setup as a parable. If you’re going to call all references to the Old Testament stories as useful fictions, then why not everything?

Another argument is your history definition. I would argue that dating has less to do with the accuracy of history as does bias. Look at our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The history written today about those wars is often incorrect and nonsensical yet we are barely a few years removed from them. So there’s no way to gauge accuracy purely on date.

You seem to be picking and choosing what is literal when it fits you. You argue that the reference to a dome in the sky is literal rather than a metaphor because it allows you dispell the creation accounts as myth. Yet when Christ mentions Jonah or other New Testament writers mention the days of Noah, you claim it is metaphor or non-truth story telling.

 

[someperson555]

its unfortunate that so many americans subscribe to an illogical fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. the bible uses FIGURATIVE language, its NOT meant to be taken literally.
personally i am more angry at the fundies than the atheists, since its because of the fundies that make christians look bad.
i think by now no one can deny the reality of evolution, and anyone who does should not be allowed to graduate from highschool.

 

[RACJ]

its unfortunate that so many americans subscribe to an illogical fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. the bible uses FIGURATIVE language, its NOT meant to be taken literally.
personally i am more angry at the fundies than the atheists, since its because of the fundies that make christians look bad.
i think by now no one can deny the reality of evolution, and anyone who does should not be allowed to graduate from highschool.

YOU have amazing arrogance to say that anyone who does not accept the concept that single-celled organisms have developed, over time, consciousness, sight, hearing, growth, flight, web-spinning and a million other mysteries, is stupid. Well, I don't swallow every unproven idea that makes no sense to me. Mutations are almost always *destructive* to organisms, yet we are supposed to believe that billions of positive mutations were saved over eons to create organisms more complex than any computer. However it all happened, I can't fathom why any Christian would be ashamed to say that all life is the product of a Great Intellect, God. :rolleyes:

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

It’s something of a fallacy to believe that just because something is true today that it was true in the past. Quantum physics alone indicates that things aren’t nearly as consistent as your view of science would dictate. If we go back far enough, the gravity on this planet was not the same as it was today, so it really is just a question of degree rather than things always remaining the same.

The key phrase is ‘go back’. What your referring to about the state of gravity could’ve only occurred in a span of millions of years compared to our measly milleniums (with only less than 2 centuries of scientific understanding).

Honestly, can you please explain to me why our modern world is closer to this and not anything like this?

Those are the implications of what you’re suggesting. Why is it that I’m a content writer with a heavy day job and not some grumpy guardian to a little cleric missionary of the Church because the world’s been taken over by evil pagan sorcerers?

And Plato’s cave was called an allegory by himself and the Greeks. People knew it was a story just as they knew Christ’s parables were made up stories to illustrate a point. When he and the apostles refer to the first Adam and Jonah, there is not setup as a parable. If you’re going to call all references to the Old Testament stories as useful fictions, then why not everything?

Christ never said His stories were made up. And again, didn’t know or didn’t care? There’s a huge difference. How many times do I have to repeat that you’re not just talking about a book but a compilation of several?

Another argument is your history definition. I would argue that dating has less to do with the accuracy of history as does bias. Look at our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The history written today about those wars is often incorrect and nonsensical yet we are barely a few years removed from them. So there’s no way to gauge accuracy purely on date.

Nonsensical? Please don’t use the wars of the news networks cloud your common sense. Just because people have a different take on statistics and events, doesn’t mean those events didn’t happen on their basic level. I’ve said this before somewhere but when one source declares “Christian shoots in self defense against homosexual harasser” and another says “Homophobic church goer shoots innocent gay”, it doesn’t mean person A still didn’t shoot person B.

You seem to be picking and choosing what is literal when it fits you. You argue that the reference to a dome in the sky is literal rather than a metaphor because it allows you dispell the creation accounts as myth. Yet when Christ mentions Jonah or other New Testament writers mention the days of Noah, you claim it is metaphor or non-truth story telling.

Because just like when we use OT stories as metaphors, that was closer to how people in the NT viewed them as well. Do you think I actually believe people can live in whales for days just because I tell Johan’s story?

 

[someperson555]

YOU have amazing arrogance to say that anyone who does not accept the concept that single-celled organisms have developed, over time, consciousness, sight, hearing, growth, flight, web-spinning and a million other mysteries, is stupid. Well, I don’t swallow every unproven idea that makes no sense to me. Mutations are almost always destructive to organisms, yet we are supposed to believe that billions of positive mutations were saved over eons to create organisms more complex than any computer. However it all happened, I can’t fathom why any Christian would be ashamed to say that all life is the product of a Great Intellect, God.

*facepalm
i never said that God didnt create life, he created the universe from the moment of the big bang and guided evolution from then on. (and this is the official stance of the catholic church).
its called “theistic evolution”. and while the minor details have still not been worked out (i.e, the exact moment that God gave man’s ancestors spirits) traditional creationism has been debunked, all one needs to do is look at geology, it is already proven that the earth is older than 6 thousand years. and we can even compare similarities in the genetic codes of animals and humans. a chimp is 98% genetically indentical to a human’s genome, this is no coincidence.
not to mention dinosaur fossils.
does the evolutionary theory have some holes? yes.
but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than creationism. creationists have LOT to answer for, like the age of the earth, the age of the universe, the fossils of dinosuars, HUMAN civilizations older than 6,000 years. (the neolithic farmers were building civilizations at 40,000 BC)
so yes, whoever believes creationism needs a lesson in logic.

 

[ringil]

its unfortunate that so many americans

You mean 'mericuns! Thank you very much!

I follow my Bible, not no high fallutin’ science!

 

[RACJ]

*facepalm
i never said that God didnt create life, he created the universe from the moment of the big bang and guided evolution from then on. (and this is the official stance of the catholic church).
its called “theistic evolution”. and while the minor details have still not been worked out (i.e, the exact moment that God gave man’s ancestors spirits) traditional creationism has been debunked, all one needs to do is look at geology, it is already proven that the earth is older than 6 thousand years. and we can even compare similarities in the genetic codes of animals and humans. a chimp is 98% genetically indentical to a human’s genome, this is no coincidence.
not to mention dinosaur fossils.
does the evolutionary theory have some holes? yes.
but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than creationism. creationists have LOT to answer for, like the age of the earth, the age of the universe, the fossils of dinosuars, HUMAN civilizations older than 6,000 years. (the neolithic farmers were building civilizations at 40,000 BC)
so yes, whoever believes creationism needs a lesson in logic.

 So, you believe in intelligent design through evolution? Know that your belief is absolutely NOT taught in biology classrooms; in fact naturalists teach that a god is absolutely *unnecessary* for evolution. If you ever wonder why so many young people lose their faith, look no further than this silly secular theory dressed as real science. 
 Now, I am not a young earth creationist. But I know that scientists have not a clue concerning the advent of consciousness, or about how sight or hearing evolved from nothingness. Only mere speculation. Nothingness does not know that there is anything to see or hear, YET these senses came into being. And millions more curiosities. Our brains can fire a million billion synapses per second. This phenomena evolved? Were we all once at the grunt stage? If so, we'd have all been eaten alive by other lower animals. T Rex would have turned us all into rare steaks! ;) Rob

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

So, you believe in intelligent design through evolution? Know that your belief is absolutely NOT taught in biology classrooms; in fact naturalists teach that a god is absolutely unnecessary for evolution.

Define ‘unnecessary’. Not mentioning God whilst explaining the way life could’ve possibly developed is not the same as saying God is unnecessary. The necessity of a creator is further in the realm of philosophy and theology than science. Science only explains what things are and how they work.

T Rex would have turned us all into rare steaks! Rob

That’s on the ridiculous assumption that we lived alongside dinos. Please know that The Flinstones is not a series of scientific documentaries.

 

[gcharles]

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Bible Unicorns

by George Charles
12/31/69
For Sale

---

This is a story about the unicorn in the bible. I was listening to a radio talk show one day and the host Bob Durgin had on an atheist. The atheist was taunting Durgin about the silliness of having a unicorn in the bible. To begin with there are many agnostics but not many atheists. Days later on the morning talk show, host RJ Harris had received a call about the unicorn in the bible. The radio station is not a Christian radio station but Durgin and Harris make no apologies for being Christians.

First of all Bob Durgin deserves an award for his patience. I think the atheists name was something like Silverberg or something like that. He voiced his dislike for Christians and confirmed his dislike for Jews. I honestly thought Durgin should have called 911 for the guy. He was actually hyper. He brought up the fact Christians believe in unicorns. Obviously real Jews would also believe in what was called a unicorn in the bible ssince it came from the Old Testament.

Is there actually the mention of a unicorn in the bible? The answer is absolutely yes. Unicorn is mentioned in the King James version and the 21st Century King James version. The NIV bible and New American Standard version translates this as wild ox.

The following are examples from the King James Bible:
Deuteronomy 33:17 God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.
Isaiah 34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
Numbers 23:22 God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.
Numbers 24:8 God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.

In the New American Standard and NIV bibles they used the words wild ox instead of unicorn. Certainly by reading the above nmentioned bible verses you see the unicorn in the bible was very strong. Obviously the atheist forgot to do his research or maybe he didn’t want us to research.

The first thing I did was find the word in Hebrew. The word in Hebrew used for this animal is ‘re’em.’ It could be interpreted as wild bull or unicorn.

The animal was described in Mesopotamian Art as a fierce animal with one horn. In Greece Aristotle mentioned a one-horned animal. Another Greek Ctesias described an animal, “wild asses, fleet of foot, having on the forehead a horn a cubit and a half in length.” He also mentioned they came in red, black and white.

A famous Roman writer named Pliny wrote in the ‘Elder’s Natural History ’about an Indian ‘ass, “a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits in length standing out in the middle of its forehead. It cannot be taken alive. The previous mentioned Ctesias also mentioned a one-horned horse in India. It is mentioned that was seen in India could possibly be a rhinoceros.

As you can clearly see the magical unicorn you see today is nothing like the unicorn in the bible. It sounds like an animal you would not want to run into. It is certainly not what you think of as a unicorn. It could have been a one horned wild ox that has went extinct.

I would like to acknowledge a website all about unicorns at www.allaboutunicorns.com. I used much of their valuable information to write this article. I would also like to acknowledge this fine radio talk show host Bob Durgin.

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[gcharles]

Please read the article I wrote on the bible unicorn. The stupid atheists don’t know how to search. It is a wild oxen.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Please read the article I wrote on the bible unicorn. The stupid atheists don’t know how to search. It is a wild oxen.

Uh-huh, but why stop there? Why not also believe that the plague of blood was really some form of soil/mud pollution? Why can’t the plague of darkness simply stand for an eclipse?

Why can’t the creation account simply be symbolic of how the Earth came to be as science explained it?

Why accept OT literalism at all?

Ground level. Meet the slope.