Do atoms confirm or refute the bible?

No. The Bible is not about the structure of matter.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just remember, there is no dichotomy between accepting the TOE and being religious, even Christian. For many of us it is pretty obvious that evolution is how goddunnit.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

It's even more complex than that. I am a Christian Creationist who accepts that the TOE is the best explanation for the diversity of life we see.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, of course not. The various Genesis creation myths are just that. They are lessons to be learned, but certainly not scientific descriptions of what happened.Glad to discuss it in this thread if we can stay on topic or in another.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Good idea. For some background you might want to look at A Catechism of Creation: An Episcopal Understanding

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, I believe in the Bible and that includes Genesis. It is more a case of What Genesis is telling us than whether or not it is true.The authors of the different creation stories in Genesis (and there are signs that it is at least three different tales, maybe more) had multiple purposes. The two tales though, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, are completely different and frankly, the details in them are mutually exclusive.The editors and redactors sat down and decided to include both stories, to place them in the order we see today with the younger tale coming first and the older tale second, to leave them in their original form and not edit them to take out the contradictions. If we are honest, we have to ask "Why?"Why didn't the redactors and compilers smooth things out to remove inconsistencies and contradictions?First, because the two tales show two entirely different and complementary views of GOD. The God in Genesis 1 is overarching, transcendent, aloof and powerful beyond imagination. She simply creates by an act of will; "Let there be Light", and there was light.The God of Genesis 2 is quite different. The Genesis 2 God is far more personal, bumbling even, unsure, very hands on and personal. The Genesis 2 God is super-human, but something we can understand, relate directly with, communicate with.Each story also tries to explain the world we live in. It does that as well as can be expected for the time. The fact that the Bible gets some of the science wrong is no more important than the fact that every theory and scientific law we use today will likely be shown to have been wrong. That is how science works. As we learn more we realize that our understanding of the mechanics was incomplete.But the Bible is NOT about atoms, not about science. It is about mans relationship with GOD, GODs relationship with man, mans relationship with our fellow men and with the world we live in.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

is more accurately described as "Just So" stories.Some even make sense when viewed from the perspective of the peoples of the time. Consider the idea of fountains of the deep. When you dig a hole, it often filled with water from the bottom up. Sometimes water even seeped out from the side of hills. Based on this there had to be water under the earth.The same held true of the "Waters Above". It rained and there were no signs of water going back up, so there had to be some mass, a large mass of water that was up there. But since it didn't rain all the time, something had to hold the water up. There had to be some solid dome that had windows in it that could open at times, in different sizes, different places to let the water out. Sometimes they opened a little and you got gentle rain, at other times the windows opened a lot and you got lots of rain.Given the observations they had at the time, the ideas worked. The ideas explained what was seen. The fact that the ideas were not correct or complete is secondary, only as new knowledge was gained could the mistakes be corrected.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion