My point exactly. I believe what God says in Romans 1:20 that His divine nature and eternal character are revealed through creation. Besides, to reject the evidence from nature is to believe that God’s creation is a forgery. Numbers 23:19 – God is not a man, that He should lie.
I believe in gravity. In fact I am demonstrating it as I type. Can you demonstrate ape men or one specie turning into a different specie? 
[quote=“Christy, post:20, topic:5534”]
You believe what man says about what Genesis must be interpreted to mean.
[/quote] The difference is that God said, He inspired men to write the bible. So, yes, I believe what these men wrote, my friend
(2 Peter 1:21) “21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
(Proverbs 30:5) “5 Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”
Wow, this exchange has been pretty sad so far. Why does the tone always end up being so sarcastic and cutting in these sorts of conversations? (I suppose it’s probably because people aren’t actually interested in having a genuine give and take and actually discussing the evidence - who has time to actually cross-examine their own views? haha).
Anyways, I agree with Ted that Conrad Hyers’ book, “The Meaning of Creation” in which those two chapters appear is one of the best books in terms of whether Genesis 1-2 really is dealing with the physical creation of the universe. It’s such a good book that it practically makes me wonder why anything else ever had to be written as far as the Creation / Evolution controversy goes.
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Who’s being sarcastic and cutting? Just because people are disagreeing doesn’t mean they are being mean. Look at the liberal smiley sprinkling…
Yes, actually the existence of hominins and the progression of species diversification is demonstrable. We have lots of information about this on the BioLogos website for anyone who actually wants to examine the evidence instead of inexplicably insisting it doesn’t exist. Common Questions on Science and Biblical Faith - BioLogos
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Perhaps sarcastic and cutting are slightly strong words in this context but the shallow one-line responses by Wookin_Panub appear sarcastic most of the time. I take the smileys and the “my friend” as an implied, “you’re stupid”. Statements like, “Ya…no.” and etc just smack of sarcasm. As beaglelady mentioned, at least with Wookin, there seems to be a weird ego thing going on. That’s essentially all I was referring to. Although I’m sure you know what I’m talking about when it comes to these conversations going downhill pretty fast and no one really wanting to actually stop and examine their own assumptions…
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But it is sort of entertaining, much like the current political discussions. For us of southern extraction, we need a “bless your heart” emoticon!
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I propose this one. (The sparkles are the blessing, see)
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Actually that is, yet again, an interpretation of the evidence. No one has actually observed this. It takes more faith for me to believe in that then it does to believe Genesis 1 is literal history, my friend
My friend, that is your perception. I have been nothing but civil and attempted to use loving tones. If you feel offended, for that I am sorry, but I don’t know how to respond other than how I have been responding. Is this sarcastic? Someone once asked Spurgeon, “Why don’t you just preach to the elect? He answered, “Well, if you’ll run around and pull up everybody’s shirttails so I can see if they have an “E” stamped on their back, I will.”
Wookin, you keep talking about “interpretations” of the evidence. While this is correct to an extent, you haven’t given any coherent scientific reasons why (a) these interpretations should be fallacious, or (b) other interpretations should exist.
And yes, I know, you could always say “God did it,” and that would be correct too, but you do need to be careful there because in some cases, you could be arguing that God created evidence for things that never happened.
For example, if humans do not share a common ancestry with primates and other animals, why do we have so much DNA in common? And why do these similarities include sequences that appear to come from viral infections (endogenous retroviruses) that occur in exactly the same place?
Either we share a common ancestor with apes and other animals, or else we were created with genetic evidence for a common ancestry that never happened. In other words, creation of deceptive history again.
I am not here to make scientific arguments. I will leave that to the scientists/pseudo scientists. I am here to say that the bible and evolution cannot be wed.
[quote=“jammycakes, post:33, topic:5534”]
For example, if humans do not share a common ancestry with primates and other animals, why do we have so much DNA in common? And why do these similarities include sequences that appear to come from viral infections (endogenous retroviruses) that occur in exactly the same place? [/quote]
That’s begging the question. If animals and humans share the same DNA, then humans must have evolved from animals, therefore evolution is true. I have a over simplified analogy I like to make when I hear such an argument. If I am a painter and on my canvass. I paint a human and a dog. Are not both created in paint? God merely used the same “STUFF” to create all living things, but specifically made man in His image. Man is creative, man has a sense of humor, man seeks justice, man is logical etc… but man was not made in the image of animals nor has man ever been an animal. We were fearfully and wonderfully made, knit in the wombs of our mothers, Given a conscience and the law placed in our hearts, my friend
Bible verses can be found to support any argument whatever. The “days” of Genesis can be taken to mean 24 hours or an indefinite period of time in modern English. (The phrase ’ back in my day’ does not referred to a specific date on the calendar. ) the fact that Genesis 2 starts out “in the day when God created the heavens and earth” indicates that ancient Hebrew used the same convention. At least in this case we know that a day can equal seven days. It is impossible for us to determine if the authors of Genesis thought that God used one earth week to create the universe, or billions of years. The important part of the creation story is that God did it, not how long it took him to do it.
Other parts of the Bible indicate that time for God is not the same is time for man. That can lead to the day/age interpretation of Genesis, which was proposed by many Christians two centuries ago when geology began to indicate the world was more than a few thousand years old. Before that, the church finally concluded that Galileo was right, and that the earth rotated around the sun, but that it did not invalidate the Bible because its authors thought the earth was stationary.
We have to be careful about equating time and resources, such as a day being equal to 1000 years. There was a man who when he heard that to God, a second was as a million years, and a million dollars to God was as a penny, asked God, “can I borrow a couple of bucks?” God replied, “just a minute.”
Wookin, you say things like this here because you know that many of us are born-again Christians who do not need to be persuaded that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is to be taken seriously.
However, have you any idea what kind of message you are sending to people who do need to be persuaded when you say things like this? To non-Christians to whom you are witnessing? To YEC teenagers who have just been confronted with incontrovertible evidence that both a young earth and independent human ancestry are overwhelmingly contradicted by the scientific evidence, and are facing a massive crisis of faith as a result?
I’ll tell you what they hear. They will either hear you telling them that you haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, or they were hear you telling them that Christianity is an exercise in living in some kind of anti-intellectual fantasy la-la land. In both cases, they will likely also hear you telling them that they will get no support whatsoever from you in their faith crises, but only accusations of compromise.
Either way, they will hear you telling them that they should reject Christ, not accept Him.
Rejecting evidence in favour of your tradition interpretation of Scripture may sound very impressive to people within the church, who will admire you for your show of faith. However, Jesus said “Go into all the world.” He did not say “Go into all the church.” Remember that the apostles in Acts decided not to impose the Jewish ceremonial laws about circumcision or diet on Gentile converts. Similarly, we should not impose unnecessary commandments to deny reality on new or struggling fellow believers.
Not when there is a number next to the word, “day”
Only impossible to those who reject Genesis 1 (Exodus 20:8-11) “8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it…”
Is there time in God’s realm? “In the beginning” is the beginning of time for man
[quote=“Larry_Bunce, post:35, topic:5534”]
Before that, the church finally concluded that Galileo was right, and that the earth rotated around the sun, but that it did not invalidate the Bible because its authors thought the earth was stationary.[/quote]
The authors were not scientist. They only spoke from a human perspective. Furthermore they were not making any scientific claim that the sun was stationary. In fact, the bible speaks of the sun in movement.
I love this analogy … can I use it?!
I believe that the bottom line is God has endowed us with brains and a curiosity to investigate the world he has entrusted us with, and would not deceive us about what this world tells us about Him and our relation to Him.
I honestly can’t even figure out what six 24 hours days of creation would look like. Would God be in some sort of cosmic workshop furiously trying to finish off all of the lights in the heavens before midnight struck, and He had to get to work on the swarms of creatures, lest He fall behind schedule?
I think it’s best to not put God into a box of our own making. The discoveries of science have given my faith more depth and conviction that I ever thought possible, and I am grateful to the many wonderful fellow Christian scholars who have opened my eyes and mind to the wonders of His creation!
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Let me say this with the utmost sincerity. I don’t care. Truth is truth. When sharing my faith. I am confronted with these type of questions, and I respond to them the same way I respond to you. They either accept it or they don’t, but I am not going to dumb down the gospel or deliberately navigate around controversial issues in order that it seems palatable. Sorry, I cannot do that 
Which is why He gave us a bible. Genesis 1, my friend
That is under work righteousness, which has been a hot button topic between protestants and Catholics. The disciples constantly debated among one another. Debate, as long as it is done in a civil and loving tone, is a good way to find truth. No one is imposing any unnecessary commandments. I believe theistic evolutionists are Christians. TRUTH is so import, my friend (John 4:24) "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
I agree with you in principle and commend you for this.
However, if you are telling me that I must accept a young earth or independent human ancestry, then you are telling me that I must believe that the evidence that God created is deceptive, and therefore that Romans 1:20 is untrue.