There are hundreds of thousands of papers in scientific journals that, together, constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt. If I had to suggest three things that are more approachable, they would be this video (part of a larger video) of a Catholic professor, the book 'The Language of God' by the evangelical Christian Francis Collins, and an intriguing book entitled 'Your Inner Fish' by Neil Shubin. Obviously, these are just three snippets of information, but they alone are compelling. Absolutely we are made in God's image - but God is Spirit, right? We're not made in God's physical image: He doesn't have two eyes, two arms, etc. At the spiritual level, however, we are like him, and hence we are unique in the animal kingdom. We can have discussions like this, we can hold opinions, we can love, we can paint, we can read novels, we can listen to Beethoven's music - and we have the capacity to have a relationship with God. Honestly, though, I didn't mean to get into details. The point is that there's a strong parallel between what happened during the age of Copernicus and what is happening today. The logic in Bible verses quoted by the church back then seemed unassailable. As more and more evidence came to light that our earth orbits the sun, I'm sure many said that "God just made it look like that to test our faith." In the end, though, church leaders had to admit their error. There's a strong likelihood that the same thing is happening today.
Not being paleontologists, we may think so, but to those working in the field it's not outrageous at all. Take the tooth, for example. Our upper teeth are well matched with our bottom teeth, and they have ridges and specific shapes that indicate the type of food we eat. One of the big transitions to mammals was in the way we eat. The shape of a single tooth can reveal an awful lot to the trained eye. (Just think about how we identify missing persons using teeth.) It's the same with other bones in our bodies: They reveal how we walk, where we place our weight, how we move our head, whether we can hear, how we eat, what we eat, and much more. Again, if you read the book 'Your Inner Fish', you'll begin to understand the point. It's written for the layperson, but its examples are all backed up by technical journal papers.
To the church in Copernicus' day, it was a matter of the veracity of Scripture. Don't we hear this today? "This verse is obviously literal in meaning - if we deny this verse, we'll start to deny every verse." The Bible states that God made the sun stand still: That's a very literal statement. Elsewhere, the Bible says that "the foundations of the earth are fixed and cannot be moved." The argument against heliocentricity seemed rock solid. But I agree with you that we're not meant to take everything literally. The sun didn't really stand still, but to Joshua it seemed to. Now, let's follow that principle: The flood wasn't really universal; it just seemed so to Noah. Is this a valid extrapolation? If not, why not? Can we really pick and choose in this way - some things are literal and some are not - just to fit the argument to prevailing Christian culture?
You identify missing person if the dental records match and even that isn't 100% reliable. It is more of what teeth are missing, what teeth have caps, and the general shape of the mouth from what I understand. There is no way someone can reliably prove that a creature walked on two feet from one foot bone. They can theorize it, because it is so close to a human bone, but NO way to absolutely prove it, unless they were there to witness the creature doing the walking.
As far as the Bible is concerned, I agree with you on this (or what I think you are getting at), we don't know exactly what to take literally and what to take figuratively. We don't exactly know what was changed with Christ's Resurrection. I have faith that He paid the penalty for my sins, but some people think that the tithe is no longer mandated. I don't think a lot of churches would want that kind of thinking. Then there are a whole bunch of things in the NT that if we were to follow would bring about a huge change in society (or at least Christians). Some people believe women should have a head covering. Others believe that women should not cut their hair. Some people believe that any jewelry is wrong. Are they wrong or are they correctly interpreting Scripture? I don't honestly know, and I will try my hardest not to judge those who believe differently that I believe. My crisis of faith (recent past) has humbled me a lot.
I agree wholeheartedly and admire your willingness to question what prevailing culture expects us to believe. As John Polkinghorne put it: "every image of God is an idol which eventually has to be broken in the search for Reality." The same truth applies to Bible verses - as heliocentricity shows.
Evolutionists and Creationists all have the same evidence to work with but how they interpret that evidence will lead them to vastly different conclusions. It's not about proof but evidence. So I'm not joining in that debate. What I will say is that they are mutually exclusive. I understand the appeal of merging the two belief systems for the Christian. But if you believe in the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution and I'll lay out, quickly, why. #1- Jesus died for our sins. This is the foundation of belief for Christianity so I assume anyone who says they're a Christian believes this, right? Jesus died, so sin exists. Christ took the punishment for our sins: death. #2- Death is a direct consequence of sin. Christ's sacrifice offers eternal life, this is the contrast. Death was swallowed up when Christ arose. "For the wages of sin is death", "For by one man, sin entered the world and death through sin". "Oh death, where is your sting?" And many other verses connect sin and death. Without sin, there would be no death, disease, corruption of our bodies or our planet. #3- Evolution requires death. Millions of years of it. Billions they now say. But before mankind came into existence there could be no sin. So it requires death without sin. If death is not a consequence of sin, Jesus' sinless death means nothing. If death is not a consequence of sin, the foundation of Christianity falls apart. "The punishment of sin IS death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." (et al.) It's one thing to come at one difficult passage from alternate perspectives, but this is a truth splashed across the pages from beginning to end. Christ's atonement is only effective because as a sinless man he didn't deserve death.
I always knew I would have a "duh" moment on how it is irrefutable. I just never rationalized it that way before. Thank you!!!!!!!
All verses that relate to death being the consequence of sin relate to spiritual death (if you check them out, you'll see it's the case). Not one relates to physical death. This is what we would expect because death means 'separation'. Indeed, Adam died the moment he disobeyed - even though he lived physically for centuries longer. Since God is Spirit (as the Bible tells us), we are spiritually separated from God. The fact that animal bodies died physically before then is immaterial. Millions of Christians around the world, many of them among the world's most eminent scientists, would respectfully disagree. One explains 'why'; the other explains 'how'.
All of creation suffers the affects of sin. Disease, pain, decay, thorns and thistles, death--both physical and spiritual--are consequences of sin. That is why blood sacrifices were instituted. Man was originally intended to live forever in a perfect physical state but because of sin we were both spiritually separated from God and began to physically deteriorate. Even that was part of God's mercy, however. That is why he barred the way to the tree of life, so that we wouldn't live forever in our miserable sinful state. The natural lifespan of man began getting shorter and shorter at this point, and more rapidly after the flood. But this universe is wearing out, not building up. Scripture says all creation groans in expectation of the return of Christ.
I agree. This isn't a creationist vs scientist issue. There are scientists who hold to the 6days of creation, including my DH. He thinks that evolution is not great science, and that it is pushed more by educators than true scientists.
Sorry to pick on something you wrote, but it brings the topic back to the original point I was making. When we hear a particular teaching over and over, we assume it's the correct interpretation of Bible verses; I'm no less guilty. There's a big danger in that, and it's why we should study the Bible independently as well as with others. Otherwise, it's easy to be deceived. In this example, the usual interpretation is that man never ate from the tree of life, indeed was forbidden from doing so. But this is not the case! The command was to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; man could eat from all the others. I suggest that, in his pre-sinful state, man's spirit inhabited a body that dies just like any other animal body - except that fruit from the tree of life prevented the body from deteriorating. Only when man rebelled and died spiritually did God bar man from eating from that tree. For the first few generations, the lingering effects caused men to live much longer lives. Today, we anticipate only our "three score and ten." The example of death resulting from sin is another. The Bible doesn't say that physical death is the result of sin. Based on context, it does say that our sin caused a separation from God, which is the definition of spiritual death. Such a reevaluation of our interpretation of Bible verses is just what the church was forced to go through in the days of Copernicus. The Bible verses seemed rock solid, and the interpretations seemed in no doubt - but physical evidence from our world created a contradiction. What do we do? (1) We can cling to our longstanding interpretations and grit our teeth - but this can only continue for so long. Eventually, the physical evidence becomes overwhelming. (2) We can claim that God plants evidence that appears to contradict our interpretation of Bible verses as a test of faith - but this implies that God deceives; this flat out contradicts everything we know about him. (3) We can revisit our interpretation of Bible verses, their context, and their intended meaning. It's not easy to do, and it may be going against the majority, but it's the only intellectually honest thing to do. Decades after Copernicus, the church accepted its former error. Today, we don't think twice about the sun being at the center of the solar system. I'm not suggesting the Bible is in error, but I am suggesting that we should be forever reevaluating our interpretation of its words and contesting even oft-repeated teaching.
Hold up a sec. I said God barred the way from the tree of life, not that it was a forbidden fruit along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He barred the way after sin entered the world. And we do indeed see that the effects were more than just spiritual. We see that painful childbirth was a consequence, and that the ground was cursed. Sin threw everything, all of creation, out of whack. I'm still not interested in debating the evolution/creation issue. But the statement about "overwhelming evidence" is misleading and erroneous. It's easy to say "well, we aren't paleontologists" (therefore we can't understand and must take what we're told at face value) when it seems convenient to accept as fact the assumptions they use, than to learn and study and examine the evidence for ourselves with zero leading from these supposed experts. Your point about the Bible (not that I endorse your stance on interpreting the Bible), but your point needs to be applied to evolutionary beliefs as well. =)
I'm sorry, but did you call Darwin a "great scientist"? Surely not. First he washed out at being a preacher then he plagiarized much of his "work".
Here is another thought: We tend to "see" what we want when we look at "evidence". We already have in mind what we want to believe. So, back to my original argument, nothing on this green earth is ever going to prove it one way or the other. I know people will argue, but the key word is "prove". One thing I really want to know is why do we even have to include this in science classes at all. There are many other things to concentrate on. If I were a doctor, it wouldn't matter if I studied evolution or not.
