Creation vs. Evolution

[Soggy]

Personally, I don't worry about the little inconsistencies in the bible. I try to focus on the big problems, like 800 year old people and floods that could have never happened. It is clear that a literalist interpretation of the bible is completely irrational. An allegorical approach is the only way to be rooted in reality while still maintaining belief.

 

[Hank49]

Mine don't.

I don't.

I have a question regarding evolution. Many things can happen which will cause genetic "direction" which will help insure the survival of a given species, correct? Warming climate, cooling, available food change (causing long neck in giraffes etc).
Now for the last hundreds of years, man has cultured pigs, which when raised by man in pens, survive under very different conditions than wild pigs. Granted, it's only been a few hundred years or so, but to my knowledge, wild and domestic pigs can still interbreed. From an evolutionary point of view, at what point does species differentiation happen? Will, at some point, half the offspring of one sow, not be able to breed anymore with wild pigs? I would think that at some point we will see this. In my case we breed shrimp for specific traits and this has been going on for 20 years or so. With shrimp, that's over 20 generations. Yet they still look the same and can breed with wild caught shrimp. Yet, at some point, we should see (maybe not in my lifetime) a point where a given isolated breeding population of pigs....or shrimp...can't breed anymore with the original parent stocks. Am I missing something here?

 

[MikeFerrara]

Thal

Some of these are just plain silly and I’m surprised you didn’t cull them before posting.

Just a few examples.

The sky is solid, a "firmament" (Gen 1:6, Job 22:14, Isa 40:22). It has windows through which the rain falls (Gen 7:11).

The “firmament” is the atmosphere...the air above the earth...the first heaven. Isa 40:22 says that He stretches out the heavens like a curtain. Not exactly a declaration that it is solid like a curtain but it likens His stretching of the heavens to the stretching of a curtain. LOL. Gen 7:11 is a description of the beginning of the rain...the windows of heaven opened. LOL. Sorry but it would take a real goof to take that as a physical description of a solid sky with windows for rain to come through.

Snakes eat dust (Gen 3:14, Isa 65:25).

Give me a break. LOL it means that their face is in the dust (very close to the ground). The last time I saw a snake it seemed true enough to me.

Salt can lose its saltiness (Matt 5:13, Mark 9:50, Luke 14:34).

Is that what is said there? “You are the salt of the earth but if the salt loses it’s flavor, how shall it be seasoned?”
This is another...give me a break.

The whale is a fish (Jonah 1:17, Matt 12:40).

Jonah 1:17 says that the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. No mention of a whale at all. Matthew 12:40 mentions the great fish but again...no whales. Can we call this another give-me-a-break example?

Jonah is able to survive three days and nights in the belly of the fish without oxygen and without being digested (Jonah 1:17, 2:10).

A very special fish prepared by God for a very special purpose. The Bible does not tell us that Noah had to go three days without breathing. God can do stuff like that. While I wouldn't go out of my way to get swallowed by a fish to prove it can be done, I wouldn't run the other way when God told me to do something either because I might get swallowed by a fish and have to spend three days in that fish. LOL

I was going to do more but the are just too ridiculous and telling of the authors motives. The list looks long but you can toss out an awful lot of them before you even get going. the length probably looks impressive to people who haven't read the Bible and aren't going to though and I suppose that's what the author is shooting for.

 

[Thalassamania]

Just for fun lets take a look at the next one on your list. Gen 11:26 says Terah was 70 when Abram came along.
11:32 says that Terah lived 205 years and died in Haran.
12:4 says that Abram departed Haran when he was 75 but it is not stated that Terah is already dead.
In regards to the reference to Acts 7:4 which does say "when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell"...Abram moved around some for some period of time (I don't know what that period of time was) on to Egypt and back to Canaan where his tent had been and where he had built the altar. Then God gave the land to him in Gen 13:14 and Abram moved yet again. Exactly when during all that moving Terah died isn't clear to me but it is clear that he wasn't dead when Abram left Haran. It's also not clear to me why this verse in Acts makes a point of the fact that his father was dead when Abram was moved to the land in which they now dwell.
What I don't see is the simple addition error that your source seems to be claiming is there. There may be a bit of a puzzle here and it may even have some significance but that isn't it.

Abram left when dad would have been 150 but was already dead, but dad supposedy lived to 205. That’s over 55 years unaccounted for.

Please, that's enough time wasted on these details, words have meaning and are either correct or incorrect. If you are inspired by god to rewrite the bible, fine ... but until then it must stand as it stands, as ludicrous as it is (and that is after all my point). Hey, there is not doubt that bats are still not birds, and whales are still not fish, so infallibility is off the table anyway.

I have a question regarding evolution. Many things can happen which will cause genetic "direction" which will help insure the survival of a given species, correct? Warming climate, cooling, available food change (causing long neck in giraffes etc).
Now for the last hundreds of years, man has cultured pigs, which when raised by man in pens, survive under very different conditions than wild pigs. Granted, it's only been a few hundred years or so, but to my knowledge, wild and domestic pigs can still interbreed. From an evolutionary point of view, at what point does species differentiation happen? Will, at some point, half the offspring of one sow, not be able to breed anymore with wild pigs? I would think that at some point we will see this. In my case we breed shrimp for specific traits and this has been going on for 20 years or so. With shrimp, that's over 20 generations. Yet they still look the same and can breed with wild caught shrimp. Yet, at some point, we should see (maybe not in my lifetime) a point where a given isolated breeding population of pigs....or shrimp...can't breed anymore with the original parent stocks. Am I missing something here?

Not to be obtuse, but that happens at the point where it happens. It occurs when sufficient difference in genetic material exists that members of two populations can not produce viable offspring. In the pig case that you’re looking at (since the selection pressure has been strictly artificial selection of mico-evolutionary traits and not the result of the kind macroevolution event that would result in major immediate changes in the DNA that would render the two groups reproductively isolated) it could take a very long time. Same for the shrimp.

Now if you were taking a different approach and aggressively hybridizing or administering mutagens and then working with the survivors you might find different results which would likely not be as economically viable. For an interesting example see: University of Edinburgh

 

[MikeFerrara]

Abram left when dad would have been 150 but was already dead, but dad supposedy lived to 205. That’s over 55 years unaccounted for.

That's not what the Bible says. It's what the author of the list says.

Please, that's enought time wasted on these details, afterall there is not doubt that bats are still not birds, and whales are still not fish, so infalibilty is off the table anyway.

I can't find anyplace where the Bible says anything at all about whales being fish. I didn't check the bat thing yet.

I suppose that is enough time spent on it but you posted it. At this point the only thing the author of those lists has shown to be fallible is his own reading ability but I don't yet see where he yhas done anything to take "infallibility" of the Bible off the table or that he even moved it closer to the edge.

 

[Thalassamania]

I can't find anyplace where the Bible says anything at all about whales being fish. I didn't check the bat thing yet.

How's this grab you: (Lev 11:13,19, Deut 14:11, 18): You are to detest these birds. They must not be eaten because they are detestable: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, the kite, the various kinds of falcon, every kind of raven, the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the gull, the various kinds of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the long-eared owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, the various kinds of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.

 

[Soggy]

Sorry but it would take a real goof to take that as a physical description of a solid sky with windows for rain to come through.

So, the bible is the literal word of God, except where it isn't literal? How should I know what to take as literal and what not to? I mean, the whole story of Noah is a physical impossibility on many levels, so why should I consider that to be the literal word of God, but not the details?

 

[Hemlon]

So, it's....allegorical? If individual passages need to be taken as allegorical, then why not the whole document? The story of Noah is obviously not possible.

I take the whole thing as allegorical. Noah, Adam, Jesus, etc. I put them in the same class of interesting characters as many of Dr Suess' characters.

 

[Uncle Pug]

At which point did you decide that the theory of evolution was false?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't decide that the theory of evolution was false... I just set it and my underlying reason for believing it aside.

Once having awakened to spirituality and faith the way I looked at things changed. I no longer had the underlying reason for *believing* in evolution. I could take what was true and leave behind what was supposed.

A common theme displayed here in this thread is the actual need some folks have for disproving that God exists. I no longer have that need.

I don't reject evolution but I don't accept that evolution is the explanation for who and why we are. I don't have to come up with silly lists of supposed contradictions in the Bible to insulate myself from believing in God since I already do.

******************

Trick question: Which is harder to believe ~ that Jonah survived inside a fish for three days or that Jonah died and was brought back to life after three days?

 

[Soggy]

Trick question: Which is harder to believe ~ that Jonah survived inside a fish for three days or that Jonah died and was brought back to life after three days?

Wasn't it Jesus who was brought back, not Jonah?

I don't reject evolution but I don't accept that evolution is the explanation for who and why we are. I don't have to come up with silly lists of supposed contradictions in the Bible to insulate myself from believing in God since I already do.

Make no mistake, those lists have nothing to do with my atheism, they only show that the Bible is flawed and if it is the word of God, it would be perfect, since God is perfect.