To All,
Retraction:
I want to ask for your forgiveness for my mistake in thinking that Augustine is not counted as a saint. I have been corrected, by my god-father. The subject never came up before, so he didn't know how I thought about it. But, now he has set me straight on this matter.
In Christ, Joanna
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps. 50)
Pravoslavnik,
What it boils down to is this:
Christianity claims that there was no death until Adam sinned. Evolution says that there was death from the beginning.
This makes God the author of death and suffering and makes a mockery of the incarnation.
Why would God seek to save us from that which he created? If his creation is good, then death and suffering must be good, and therefore we would have no need to be saved from them.
Evolution also posits that we have progressed from a lesser to a more developed state. Therefore sin is also part of God’s creation, and we have no need to be delivered from it.
Christianity claims that everything God created is good, and that it was man’s rebellion that brought death and sin into the world.
Man has fallen from a greater to a lesser state, and needs to be saved from this lesser state.
"Pravoslavnik,
What it boils down to is this:
Dear C.V.,
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I commend you for focusing first and foremost on theological principles and dogmas, but, in so doing, you also illustrate an important flaw in the Young Earth Creationist worldview. In effect, you, Henry Morris, et. al., are not merely rejecting the Darwinian theory of evolution; you are also rejecting three billion years of geological and paleobiological data. That is why I requested your response, for starters, regarding the age of the earth and the date for the appearance of dinosaurs and homo sapiens on the earth. What is your opinion on these issues?
If you look at the text of [i]Genesis[/i], it describes God's creation of the cosmos during the six "days" of the [i]Hexameron[/i], (which could, theoretically, have lasted a mere six 24 hour days from the point of the Big Bang, but 15 billion years from the perspective of earth-time, based on relativity.) It then describes God's activity in planting a special garden (Eden)and placing the Adam--man endowed with God's spirit--in this garden to live. Through disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven from the garden into the realm of the created world where they had to till the soil and experience pain in childbirth until the time of their eventual death. It was only through the Incarnation and glorious Resurrection of Christ that the curse of Adam was undone, and we were able to re-enter the mystical paradise of communion with God through the grace of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the Church on Pentecost.
Hence, there is a sense in which these sacred scriptures can be understood which is consistent with Orthodox dogmatic theology regarding the Fall, and with the data of modern science, but it is not the anti-scientific, false interpretation of Protestant Young Earth Creationism that you and others espouse.Pravoslavnik wrote:That is why I requested your response, for starters, regarding the age of the earth and the date for the appearance of dinosaurs and homo sapiens on the earth. What is your opinion on these issues?
We are in the year 7515 since Creation.
Regarding dinosaurs - read chapter 40 of the Book of Job. The description of Behemoth perfectly fits an Apatosaurus.
Homo sapiens - this means 'wise man' in Latin. The first 'wise man' appeared on the earth in 5508 BC.
If you look at the text of Genesis, it describes God's creation of the cosmos during the six "days" of the Hexameron, (which could, theoretically, have lasted a mere six 24 days from the point of the Big Bang, but 15 billion years from the perspective of earth-time, based on relativity.)
When the Hebrew word for day (yom) is used with an ordinal number as it is in these verses, it always means a literal twenty-four hour period of time. It never means an indefinite period. The “evening and morning” phrase in connection with “day” proves that this is a twenty-four hour period of time. See, for example, Ex. 16:8,12,13; 27:21; 29:39; Lev. 24:3; Num. 9:21; and Dan. 8:26 where “evening and morning” always refers to a twenty-four hour period. Num. 20:15 – “we dwelt in Egypt a long time.” Here, the plural of “yom” (Hebrew, yomin) is used to describe “a long time.” The phrase uses “yommin rabbim” which means “many days.” This is because that is what the verse literally intends to say. In Genesis 1, the singular “yom” is used with an ordinal number to signify a single day. Also, note that “yomin” is used over 700 times in the Bible, and it always refers to literal days.
It then describes God's activity in planting a special garden (Eden)and placing the Adam--man endowed with God's spirit--in this garden to live. Through disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven from the garden into the realm of the created world where they had to till the soil and experience pain in childbirth until the time of their eventual death. It was only through the Incarnation and glorious Resurrection of Christ that the curse of Adam was undone, and we were able to re-enter the mystical paradise of communion with God through the grace of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the Church on Pentecost.
I have no problem with this.
Hence, there is a sense in which these sacred scriptures can be understood which is consistent with Orthodox dogmatic theology regarding the Fall, and with the data of modern science, but it is not the anti-scientific, false interpretation of Protestant Young Earth Creationism that you and others espouse.
I am not 'anti-scientific'. I acknowledge the great achievements that science has brought us. This is not science versus religion. This is religion versus religion. As I have said before, evolution is nothing more than a pagan religion.
Both creation and evolution can be tested to some extent. But ultimately, none of us were there when life first appeared on the earth. Microevolution (variations within a kind) has been proven by science. Macroevolution (where one kind supposedly turns into another) has never been proven by science. No-one has ever observed one kind changing into another kind.
So, I am not anti-scientific. I just reject so-called scientific "theories" that have not been proven. Unfortunately in the modern world, evolution is accepted as "science" because it provides a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life, and doesn't require belief in God or a supernatural origin of life. Belief that God created the world is deemed to be "superstitious" or "unscientific" because it cannnot be proven. However, evolution has not been totally proven either. Both of them are accepted by faith.
I must say that your argument falls apart rather spectacularly when you refer to both evolution and creationism as religions and then fault evolution for the fact that no one has seen evolution occur between kinds.
No one has seen God engage in creationism either.
So it would seem that rhetorically you equate creationism and evolution on that point at least.
I would argue that neither creationism nor evolution is a religion, but that Orthodoxy is.
stumbler wrote:I must say that your argument falls apart rather spectacularly when you refer to both evolution and creationism as religions and then fault evolution for the fact that no one has seen evolution occur between kinds.
I never said that creationism is a religion. I said it was believed by faith, just as evolutionists believe in a spontaneous generation of life by faith. Creationism is part of the Christian religion.
No one has seen God engage in creationism either.
So it would seem that rhetorically you equate creationism and evolution on that point at least.
But the Bible is God's revelation to us. God cannot deceive nor be deceived, so if He tells us that He created the world in 6 days, we must believe Him.
I would argue that neither creationism nor evolution is a religion, but that Orthodoxy is.
Orthodoxy is the one true religion. The reason I refer to evolution as a religion is that it is believed by faith and much of it is unsupported by science.
"When the Hebrew word for day (yom) is used with an ordinal number as it is in these verses, it always means a literal twenty-four hour period of time. It never means an indefinite period. The “evening and morning” phrase in connection with “day” proves that this is a twenty-four hour period of time."
Dear C.V.,
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I don't think that you get it, despite my several posts on this subject. [i]Time passes at different rates in the universe as a function of relative velocity[/i]. This concept is central to Einstein's theory of relativity, but it is not intuitively obvious, since we perceive the space-time continuum in our limited, human way. If you measure time from the theoretical point at which the Big Bang occurred, about six 24 hour days have, in fact, elapsed during the [b]15 billion years [/b]that have elapsed from the perspective our planet earth. Do you grasp this concept? Please respond to this question. The idea that the planet earth has existed for a mere 7,500 years is completely inconsistent with a vast body of geological and paleobiological data. It is an utterly absurd notion, like insisting that the sun revolves around the earth or that the moon is made of green cheese. Do you sincerely believe that the Tyranosaurus Rex lived on earth at the same time as homo sapiens? How are your beliefs supported or refuted by the available scientific evidence? Give us examples of the data that you are using for these assertions.