• This is a new section being rolled out to attract people interested in exploring the origins of the universe and the earth from a biblical perspective. Debate is encouraged and opposing viewpoints are welcome to post but certain rules must be followed. 1. No abusive tagging - if abusive tags are found - they will be deleted and disabled by the Admin team 2. No calling the biblical accounts a fable - fairy tale ect. This is a Christian site, so members that participate here must be respectful in their disagreement.

The Second biggest evidence of the Flood. Fossils

blueboy

Member
So I was right.

How could I, who have never seen you before on this forum or met you in my life, have known that that was what you believed?

It's because those who reject Genesis as literal have to reject everything else in scripture as literal, because Genesis is the foundation for the entire Bible!



False.



What it contradicts is the fairy tale that is promoted as science called "molecules-to-man" evolution.



There is nothing illogical about Genesis 1.



There is nothing unreasonable about Genesis 1.



Again: When you reject Genesis 1 as being literal, it removes the foundation from the rest of the Bible to make any sense.



Rather, you have it backwards.

When you take Genesis 1 as literal, everything else in the Bible makes sense.

The reason you think "it misses the point of Scripture" is because you DON'T take as literal. In other words, your paradigm of beliefs is wrong because you reject Genesis 1.



There aren't any "errors of previous interpretations" to begin with.
Well you knew because it was as obvious as the nose on your face.

Genesis is the foundation of the Bible, so we agree. We know that God is the Creator of every vibrating atom. We know that humans exist because God Willed them into existence. We know that every human is born with inherent flaws that they must deal with across the span of their lives. So in essence we agree with far more of the big stuff than we disagree with. We are quibbling over the details, not the greater truth.

As for evolution and science. Nothing, absolutely nothing in science was invented by man. Every discovery of science is a gift from God, because our ability to unlock the secrets of nature, which is in effect, Creation, is gifted to us. So I do not reject Genesis, on the contrary, I read it with the eyes of a person educated in science and living in 2022. The Bible is printed because of science, written language is the product of science, the internet is science, the church you may go to was built by science, the food you eat, the doctor you visit, the clothes you wear, electricity, running water, every second of your life is effected by the gift from God of science, so how can you then reject the very same science when it tells us without question, that Genesis 1 is a beautiful symbolic teaching with great and powerful consequences and not a literal story. In fact you lose so much when you see Genesis as literal. You're right, however one interprets Genesis 1 then sends them down one of two paths. One path is superstion and dogma and the other is in harmony with science and reason and seeing as science is one of the greatest gifts from God, it is a sure bet that religion that is in conflict with science is not religion, it's a false human construct.

Science reveals the attributes of nature, that which can be explored by the senses. The Bible teaches us that we do not then understand the essence of nature, that which has been Caused and Created by God. Every atom has been Caused and Created by God, so everything is already a miracle, we are in no further need for events like Special Creation, Great chastising floods, etc.

When you take Genesis 1 as literal you spiral down a slippery slope of being in contradiction with science and the natural laws of nature which were put in place by God and are likely to be an aspect of Creation itself. You enter a religious landscape of superstition and dogma. God was not just the Creator for 6 days, He is the eternal Creator. There is never a moment when Creation ceases, otherwise and eternal, unchanging God can one day be the Creator and the next He is not Creating and thus is a changeable being.

God Created everything, Caused everything and science tells us with no ambiguity that He did so via natural order. There is not a thimble full of evidence for Special Creation, the Great Flood, etc and yet there are millions upon millions of tons of fossil, atomic, fission evidence for evolution, a timeline of life on earth, the antiquity of humans. Not one tiny part of which is an accident. Every change, increase in complexity, stage of development, was preordained by God. Every outcome was known to God. God is not in any way diminished if He chose to use natural order as His means to Create and we are then so very fortunate that He enabled us to see the staggering beauty and complexity of His Creation, its many parts and how His All-knowing, All-powerful Essence could form everything that exists from a single substance.

And remember that God is a timeless being, so a billion years is not a timeframe to God. 13.8 billion year old universe is an instant universe to a timeless being. Only we experience time.

As for errors of previous interpretations, there are somewhere between 35,000 and 75,000 Christian denominations, every one of those sect, denominations, churches, has their own interpretations, to some degree. I suggest to you that is a wondrous place for fertile minds and egos.
 

blueboy

Member
So, according to you, Genesis 1 is not about God?
Of course it's about God, His power to Create a universe, all life, every force and every atom. Genesis is a powerful teaching that uses the framework of an existing story that can be found in Gilgamesh.

Adam was not literally the first human, but in a sense he was because around 6000 years ago a Teacher received divine inspiration that informed Him and then us, that God was One. There was one God and this understanding was so profound and is was a coming of age of humanity to the extent that it could be said that the first human had arisen from the thousands of previous generations of humans who had then proclaimed the oneness of God.

The Tree of Good and Evil is this earth and its relative state. Where there is happiness there is also sadness, rich / poor, spiritual / corrupt, pure / soiled, loving / hating, etc, etc. The snake is a creature attached wholly to the earth and represents material attachment. Eve, the life-force of every human is easily seduced into immorality, sinning against God and in doing so this effects the human spirit, the eternal gift from and likeness to God Himself.

The Tree of Life is the eternal Word of God given to us by Jesus and Eden, the paradise is to be in a state of good grace with God.

And this is only a fragment of the wonders of the Genesis teaching. It is a rich and profound story that shows us the Creative power of the Oneness of God and our obligation to God.

Genesis 1 is the foundation of the understanding of God and our personal responsibility to God.
 

Derf

Well-known member
Of course it's about God, His power to Create a universe, all life, every force and every atom. Genesis is a powerful teaching that uses the framework of an existing story that can be found in Gilgamesh.

Adam was not literally the first human, but in a sense he was because around 6000 years ago a Teacher received divine inspiration that informed Him and then us, that God was One. There was one God and this understanding was so profound and is was a coming of age of humanity to the extent that it could be said that the first human had arisen from the thousands of previous generations of humans who had then proclaimed the oneness of God.

The Tree of Good and Evil is this earth and its relative state. Where there is happiness there is also sadness, rich / poor, spiritual / corrupt, pure / soiled, loving / hating, etc, etc. The snake is a creature attached wholly to the earth and represents material attachment. Eve, the life-force of every human is easily seduced into immorality, sinning against God and in doing so this effects the human spirit, the eternal gift from and likeness to God Himself.

The Tree of Life is the eternal Word of God given to us by Jesus and Eden, the paradise is to be in a state of good grace with God.

And this is only a fragment of the wonders of the Genesis teaching. It is a rich and profound story that shows us the Creative power of the Oneness of God and our obligation to God.

Genesis 1 is the foundation of the understanding of God and our personal responsibility to God.
It sounds like someone would need to go through you, with your personal theology, and your 2022-time-limited view of science, to ever find the meaning of any scripture, since it can't be taken literally.

What of all those people that have lived and died without knowing you or your science? Were they all wrong about the Bible?

What about 100 or 1000 years from now, when you won't be around to set everybody straight, and reform science back the 2022 version?
 

blueboy

Member
It sounds like someone would need to go through you, with your personal theology, and your 2022-time-limited view of science, to ever find the meaning of any scripture, since it can't be taken literally.

What of all those people that have lived and died without knowing you or your science? Were they all wrong about the Bible?

What about 100 or 1000 years from now, when you won't be around to set everybody straight, and reform science back the 2022 version?
It's not about me setting anybody straight. I doubt I've ever had an original thought. Religion and science, to a large degree, is a relative true, not an absolute truth. There will always be more to know and understand about God, Jesus and the truths of science. Those who died in ages past will be judged on the circumstances of their time. You and myself will be judged by the available knowledge in this age. The future will have its own problems and solutions.

People once lived by the standards of a Prophet, Teacher, Messiah in the age of Adam. Later they lived by the standards of Abraham, then by Noah, then by Moses, then by Jesus. The Teachings of Jesus in the NT differ considerably concerning the nonessential doctrine of Scripture. In each case, each new Prophet superseded those preceding. The OT is not really a Christian Scripture, though of course there is great wisdom in it.

One imagines that 100 or a 1000 years from now Jesus, or a Teacher like Jesus will have established a new religion and those living in that age will be subject to the science and knowledge and the Scripture of that age. That does not make any of us better or worse, it just means we are all subject to the age we are born to and judged by that measure.

This is clearly a scientific age today and there is still only one truth. Religion can't teach something that contradicts proven science because science only reveals the truth that has been Created and established by God, in such a case science is a gift of understanding from God no less than Scripture. Man never invented a single scientific proof. They already existed via God and it is up to us to seek-out and unlock God's secrets of nature. Science has built this world upon foundations laid by religion and when the scientific world takes its head out of its rear-end it will see that every search and understanding leads to God.

This is the age I was born into, it's not of my making, but it is my responsibility to make sense of both religion and science and I see them as being pretty much the same thing. Both reveal God, one via the Teachings of Christ which is personal and abstract and suggestive, but nonetheless very real and the other is by science which reveals the mechanical mysteries of God's handiwork. Science is the nuts and bolts of reality, Scripture is the Purpose, the How, the Why, the Essence of reality and our responsibility as an autonomous being with Free Will is not to accept what has gone before, rather to question everything respectfully, lovingly, because when I'm judged it will only be what I have learnt that counts, not what I have accepted without testing it, or just followed to be a part of something.

It's not my personal theology, it's just accepting truth without being subject to what people believed in an age before science opened our eyes and transformed the world. How could it not also open out eyes to the Bible and help reveal its deeper symbolic Teachings. Everything that is evolving is alive, including religion. Things that do not change are dead. Religion that does not avail itself of the best knowledge of this age is depriving itself of a greater understanding of the Word.

Thank you for replying.
 

Right Divider

Body part
Of course it's about God, His power to Create a universe, all life, every force and every atom. Genesis is a powerful teaching that uses the framework of an existing story that can be found in Gilgamesh.
So what?
Adam was not literally the first human,
Yes, he was. God said so.
but in a sense he was because around 6000 years ago a Teacher received divine inspiration that informed Him and then us, that God was One.
I sense some new-age nonsense.
There was one God and this understanding was so profound and is was a coming of age of humanity to the extent that it could be said that the first human had arisen from the thousands of previous generations of humans who had then proclaimed the oneness of God.
Yep, new-age nonsense.
The Tree of Good and Evil is this earth and its relative state.
Horse manure. (BTW, it's the Tree of KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil). See Genesis 2:9.
Where there is happiness there is also sadness, rich / poor, spiritual / corrupt, pure / soiled, loving / hating, etc, etc.
Well that's dandy.
The snake is a creature attached wholly to the earth and represents material attachment.
No, it represents a person.
Eve, the life-force of every human is easily seduced into immorality, sinning against God and in doing so this effects the human spirit, the eternal gift from and likeness to God Himself.
Eve was the first woman. Your story smells.
The Tree of Life is the eternal Word of God given to us by Jesus and Eden, the paradise is to be in a state of good grace with God.

And this is only a fragment of the wonders of the Genesis teaching. It is a rich and profound story that shows us the Creative power of the Oneness of God and our obligation to God.

Genesis 1 is the foundation of the understanding of God and our personal responsibility to God.
Genesis 1 is God's own description of His Creation of the heavens and the earth. Your story about it is a myth.
 

7djengo7

This space intentionally left blank
I don't see Genesis 1 as literal because it's not literal.
So, according to you, Genesis 1 is not about God?
Of course it's about God

So then, in Genesis 1, you read the word, 'God,' literally?


Adam was not literally the first human,

Then who was literally the first human?

but in a sense he was

"In a sense" Adam was what? "Literally the first human"?


Genesis is a powerful teaching that uses the framework of an existing story that can be found in Gilgamesh.

Let's hear you "prove" your claim that Genesis is dependent in its composition on the document called "The Epic of Gilgamesh". I mean, what "proof" will you come up with for us, if not merely to parrot from some of your fellow Bible despisers, those of them whom you may happen to revere as "experts" on this question?
 

blueboy

Member
Hilarious.

If you want to discuss science, let's discuss it. Quit making pronouncements without support.
When humans are trying to communicate it always works better when they at least try to be civil. I'm not sure why you feel the need to respond in the way you do, perhaps it's a tribal thing. You have your religious tribal beliefs that seem to be void of tolerance of any other opinion. Maybe you've spent too much energy trying to defend your belief and have run out of respect for others. Your Christian beliefs should help you here.

I respect your opinion, but I just don't agree with it. That's okay. Let's leave it at that.
 

blueboy

Member
So then, in Genesis 1, you read the word, 'God,' literally?




Then who was literally the first human?



"In a sense" Adam was what? "Literally the first human"?





Let's hear you "prove" your claim that Genesis is dependent in its composition on the document called "The Epic of Gilgamesh". I mean, what "proof" will you come up with for us, if not merely to parrot from some of your fellow Bible despisers, those of them whom you may happen to revere as "experts" on this question?
God literally, well yes, but then God is unknowable. We know God by the personal experience and by the effect of His Creative power, seen in the life and impossible complexity of nature. The exactitude required to form a universe which can not be an accident.

As for the rest, well, you just went too far. Usually a belief in the Bible makes for a better type of person, but you have me parroting and joining Bible despisers. What gives you the right to image that you belong to the only lovers of the Bible? I too love the Bible.

So it might be best if I leave you to chat amongst your own little group. It had nothing to do with being a Bible despiser. It was about trying to rightfully elevate the Bible above superstition and dogma.
 

JudgeRightly

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God is unknowable.

Yet with literally the very next few words you write you contradict yourself:

We know God by . . .

If God is unknowable, then we can't know God, by definition.

He can't be both knowable and unknowable.

you have me parroting and joining Bible despisers

You ARE a Bible despiser, because you reject what it says plainly.

I too love the Bible.

Liar.

elevate the Bible above superstition and dogma.

Says the one attempting to explain it with superstition and dogma.
 

Right Divider

Body part
When humans are trying to communicate it always works better when they at least try to be civil.
Sure, why don't you try that?
I'm not sure why you feel the need to respond in the way you do, perhaps it's a tribal thing.
Hilarious again.
You have your religious tribal beliefs that seem to be void of tolerance of any other opinion.
You opinion of my opinion is not worth a dime.
Maybe you've spent too much energy trying to defend your belief and have run out of respect for others. Your Christian beliefs should help you here.
If you want to discuss facts, that would be great.
I respect your opinion, but I just don't agree with it. That's okay. Let's leave it at that.
Nice dodge.

I respect that you have an opinion, it's your opinion that I have a problem with. It is not based on anything but your opinion.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
When humans are trying to communicate it always works better when they at least try to be civil.
Does this hold true when dogs are trying to communicate? When dogs are trying to communicate with humans? With cats? With other dogs?

What about dolphins?

Are there explicit rules for civility when talking about dogs or cats or dolphins? Do dolphins recognize civility?
 

7djengo7

This space intentionally left blank
God literally, well yes,​

Why?
God is unknowable. We know God​

As @JudgeRightly already judged, rightly, you are glaringly contradicting, by your one statement, your other statement, here: "God is unknowable" VS "We know God". At least, you are doing so so long as, by "God is unknowable," you mean that God is unknowable to us (humans)/that we (humans) can't know God. Since knowing is thinking, obviously God is unknowable to things that don't think, such as, say, washing machines and sacks of concrete. No kitchen table knows/can know God. But I take it that when you say "God is unknowable," you're not trying to tell us the obvious, uncontroversial truth that God is unknowable to things to which nothing, whatsoever, is knowable.
We know God by....​

...His Word, the Bible? You tell us that...
I too love the Bible.​

Interesting, then, that you do not tell us, "We know God by the Bible." And, if you think that God cannot be known by the Bible, we'd be curious to know why you "love" the Bible; I mean, in that case, what about the Bible prompts you to "love" it?
So it might be best if I leave you to chat amongst your own little group.​

My "own little group" is simply the group of all Christians—in other words, the group of all Bible believers. You may well be spot on, indeed, in pointing out that said group is "little"—especially in comparison with the group you represent, to which group the Bible sometimes refers as "the world" (1 John 3:1). And, it "might be best" for whom? and to what end? if you leave this forum? It certainly will not hurt anyone's feelings if you do, but just the same, your presence, here, is not bothersome to me, and I doubt that it is to my fellow Bible believers, @JudgeRightly, @Right Divider, @ok doser, @Derf, etc.
 

Derf

Well-known member

Why?



As @JudgeRightly already judged, rightly, you are glaringly contradicting, by your one statement, your other statement, here: "God is unknowable" VS "We know God". At least, you are doing so so long as, by "God is unknowable," you mean that God is unknowable to us (humans)/that we (humans) can't know God. Since knowing is thinking, obviously God is unknowable to things that don't think, such as, say, washing machines and sacks of concrete. No kitchen table knows/can know God. But I take it that when you say "God is unknowable," you're not trying to tell us the obvious, uncontroversial truth that God is unknowable to things to which nothing, whatsoever, is knowable.



...His Word, the Bible? You tell us that...



Interesting, then, that you do not tell us, "We know God by the Bible." And, if you think that God cannot be known by the Bible, we'd be curious to know why you "love" the Bible; I mean, in that case, what about the Bible prompts you to "love" it?



My "own little group" is simply the group of all Christians—in other words, the group of all Bible believers. You may well be spot on, indeed, in pointing out that said group is "little"—especially in comparison with the group you represent, to which group the Bible sometimes refers as "the world" (1 John 3:1). And, it "might be best" for whom? and to what end? if you leave this forum? It certainly will not hurt anyone's feelings if you do, but just the same, your presence, here, is not bothersome to me, and I doubt that it is to my fellow Bible believers, @JudgeRightly, @Right Divider, @ok doser, @Derf, etc.
It's somewhat bothersome to me, when a person goes to a theology forum and proceeds to inform everyone that what can be known of God is only what can be filtered through the lens of current (specifically 2022) scientific thought, which mostly denies any part God might have played in creation by attributing obvious evidence of design to an unthinking process.
 
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