A BIBLICAL defense of evolution

I may be losing tract of your argument.I read your OP and found nothing terribly wrong with it. I would only point out that that is one of many things the Bible says concerning the natural creation and how it should influence our thoughts about God. I think some "modern people" would not use the same words as "divinely inspired". But some their claims for authority (in their own way) amount practically to that as infallible. Carl Sagan has laid down some pretty heavy axioms like Moses coming down the mountian with two tablets of stone.Some "modern people" who post on this forum would dismiss any notion that thier theories could be doubted. Such doubters are ignorant or stupid or evil. Ask jar who said nothing was wrong with Dawkin's quotation that disbelievers in evolution were ignorant, stupid, or evil.I am not sure what you mean by "anti-evolution". If evolution is used to obscure the existence of a first man and a first woman as the Bible teaches then I suppose to that extent I am "anti-evolution".If you mean that there was no intelligent design of life as opposed to and verses evolution, then I guess to that extent I am "anti-evolution".But while you are refering to the Bible to demonstrate its view on natural creation, I'd like to submit some of my favorite samples:"He who planted the ear, does He not hear?

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He who formed the eye, does He not see?" (Psalm 94:9)I like this passage. Of course the Designer of the ear "hears". Of course the Designer of the eye Himself "sees".It is proposterous to me that the eye and ear have no Designer. And it is proposterous to me that such a one does not also do something akin to seeing and hearing.Is it "anti-evolution" to regard that no design or Designer could have taken part in the existence of the ear and eye of man? If so then I plead guilty to being "anti-evolution".If you mean that some portion of an evolutionary process could be used by a Designer to form life on earth, then to that extent I don't think I am "anti-evolutionist".Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Part of the purpose of my last post was to get the whole thread, not just you, back to the original point. So it wasn't all necessarily directed at you. The part that was directed at you specifically you understood and responded to. I mean people who say evolution in general did not happen. I understand that some Christians believe there was a special creation of Adam and Eve based on beliefs they have from the Bible. That doesn't mean they're against evolution. I'm talking about folks who deny long term descent with modification, such as mammals descending from reptiles. People get overconfident. This still is irrelevant to the claim for infallibility on scientific matters in the Bible.

Do you mean people like Henry Morris and Donald Kish?I don't trust the expositions of Henry Morris on the Bible. I do believe he once wrote something from the book of Revelation trying to calculate how much physical space per person there was in the New Jerusalem.I don't have much use for that kind of interpretation of the Bible.At the same time I think the overconfidence also occurs when people object to some expressions like pillars in regards to the earth or the moon not giving its light. But we're probably going around in circles now.I am biased for the word of God. So I won't easily allow critics to try to make it sound foolish. I'm likely to point out that the same level of scrutiny they probably don't apply in other areas of language.I am biased for the Bible.

My intent was not to do this. I did not say that the bible was foolish, in reference to the passages I quoted I used your word "poetic". I personally find this to be an excellent choice of wording for the seemingly incorrect science about pillars, tiny stars and such.I choose those few passages to show how people in those times could easily misunderstand the realities of science based on their lack of scientific knowledge in those times. You read those same passages and see them as poetic. Modern science put you in the position to understand such facts.To keep this on track with the OP I mean to point out that without modern scientific progression - you would interpret those passages as literal and not poetic. Does the bible directly tell us that evolution is true, big bang, etc? No, I don't think it does. It does however encourage all mankind to progress in science to understand the works of God.Yes, I do have biases to the bible. I think it is important to encourage science to whatever paths it may take. Using the bible as a means to resrict the progression of science seems to go against even what the bible says. Its not logical. Even you use science when interpreting the passages in your religious book - but at the same time advocate resricting it to a narrow method of research. My bias is simply that many people seem to pick and choose what science to declare correct, and what science to declare wrong based simply on how they read passages from the bible.

me neither. i'm glad we can agree on this. the question is exactly how much of an expression it is. we know a lot about the levantine views of cosmology, and they involve literal pillars upon which a flat earth, with a solid domed sky, stands. so when the jewish mythology presents the same view, should we take it as idiomatical simply because we value this book more highly than others? should we say "it doesn't really mean that" because we demand the book be accurate? that seems like putting the cart before the horse, if you ask me.are things like that used idiomatically? yes, all the time. but we must understand that different texts use language differently, and the grammar and context give us clues. i think you'll find that many of us are the same way. but "obviously wrong, 2,000 some years later" and "foolish" are two different things. for instance, in a thread recently about the 120-year limit on man's lifespan in genesis 6, i stated that if there are two ways read a phrase, and one way is demonstrably inconsistent with the rest of the text (even the internal source), and the other way lines up nicely, we should take the way that lines up.the people who wrote the bible didn't have access to modern scientific knowledge. that doesn't make them fools. it just makes them people who lived before modern science. even including contradictory things by way of redaction doesn't make them fools; just collectors. but saying, for instance, in one place "no one lives past 120 years" and then having every patriarch ever written about live longer than that, in the same set of stories? that's rather foolish.and to suppose that it's all one source, god -- well, that does make those errors and contradictions foolish. if it's people who wrote the bible, they were reasonably intelligent, creative, literate, knowledgable, and wise people, especially for ~600bc. but if it's god, well, god should know better. to say it's god is, in my opinion, an insult to god. god couldn't write something more concise, consistent, and less redundant? god would have access to modern scientific knowledge, and could even have written about it in terms we would understand. and there is little excuse for vagueries of language, such as idiomatic expressions, if god is the author. god could have even written it in english and every other language ever to be spoken. who cares if the people taking it down didn't understand it? i do not apply any particularly high levels of scrutiny to the text, no higher than i apply to anything else. it's really the people who are worried about interpretting the text into something factual -- the biased people like yourself -- that are forced to put all this scrutiny into it. i just read it like any other book. if i catch a lot of details, it's because i enjoy reading it.

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