The following is really for YWC and Jimmy Jam. Haters like Manhands need not respond.
As a Christian who does not believe in a literal, 7-day Creation, I am curious why there is such a fervor to defend the 6,000-year-old earth claim. Why is the Creation story taken literally by Creationist Christians, but not the command by Jesus to gouge your eye out if it causes you to stumble?
Genesis is widely acknowledged to have been written by Moses. Moses more than likely included my concepts of Jewish religion that had been passed down for generations in the account of Creation story outlined in Genesis. Why do Creationists feel like the story has to conform to (7) 24-hour periods? Upon reading the story, it is readily apparent the story isn't meant to be a literal, Chronological account. Day and night are created on the first day and the sun and moon not until day four. Lights are referred to in the firmament but then stars named as well. However, I do believe there are many concepts that are conveyed that are absolute accurate accounts of God's manipulation of the earth over Billions of years. Genesis refers to the waters gathering into one place as well as the land. This is an obvious reference to Pangaea, along with indication Pangaea was not the first super continent, since Genesis refers to the waters gathering in one place, meaning they were separated prior to Pangaea forming. The Genesis story also clearly indicates animals were created prior to man. One could also infer that the humans, male and female, referred to in the original Creation story outlined in Genesis chapter one were "soul-less". Homo Sapien is not created until AFTER the 7 "days" of Creation, when God creates a humanoid with a soul. This occurs in Genesis 2:7 after Creation is complete. If the story is read chronologically, one would absolutely have to acknowledge that there were many, many humans created prior to Adam. After Creation, a humanoid is placed in the garden, and this one, unlike the other species before him, is given a soul. I believe this "man" to be modern day Homo Sapien. And I do believe him to have originated sometime between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago based on the "un-disputable" fossil evidence.
My viewpoint, as is the viewpoint of many others in the ID movement, is that the Creation story was NEVER meant to be taken literally my modern Christians in the 21st Century. In fact, the quickest way to rob the Bible of its power is to pretend like the literary works weren't for REAL people in REAL cultures at specific times in history. Genesis was intended for the Israelites, after their Exodus from Egypt. The Creation story is written for them with their limited knowledge at the time, and meant to convey specific principles God wanted them to understand, such as, the concept of original sin and man's sinful nature. For us to take the same specific writing, intended for a very specific people at a specific time in history, and try to apply to our modern day understanding, again, robs the Bible of its power, and sends us into a predicament of having to defend something that was never intended, nor can it be logically understood by our culture.
We must understand the Bible in the context of who the individual 66 works were in intended for. One example of this is Paul's many letters to individual churches after Christ's Resurrection. In one letter to the church at Corinth, Paul addresses woman wearing head coverings. Does this mean that women in the modern church should cover their heads? We learn that at that time many Gentiles and Jews were becoming Christians and joining the Church at Corinth. The Jewish women brought with them the tradition of covering their head in the synagogue, but the Gentile women came from no such tradition. Paul's letter was less about head coverings and more about humility and eliminating divisiveness in the church. Since it was important to the Jewish women, Paul instructed the Gentile women to comply and cover their heads. Are we, as modern day Christians, supposed to loose the deeper meaning of this story and immediately command all women in our modern day congregation to begin wearing head coverings at church? Absolutely not. By the same token, we shouldn't try to view the Creation story as if it was written to us. It wasn't.
I welcome comments from Creationists.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided between the light and the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light, Day. And He called the darkness, Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
If God created with lengthy days that means death happened before the punishment was handed down to man for sin.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n042X-Fuihg]Astounding Evidence for a Young Earth - Bruce Malone - YouTube[/ame]
YWC, I've watched the video and listened to some of his assertions and I just don't agree with them. He is basing his points of HIS interpretation of the Creation story outlined in Genesis. He says that the you can't refute the fact that Genesis refers to 7 solar days, but for the first three "days" of Creation, we don't even have the sun yet. Also, he claims the author is repeating himself when talking about man twice. I get the whole argument about the dating methods and their inaccuracy. Even Loki would admit they are scientifically proven for the short timeframe we can measure and account for. However, I've been to the Grand Canyon. I've seen an overwhelming amount of evidence that points to a much older earth. But back to the story: If I want to take the Creation story literally and chronologically, I have to consider the fact the story about Adam comes later after Creation and after spirit-less hominids, male and female, roamed the earth, and multiplied. There are two stories, one in which male and female are created in a day, and another in which Adam was created, hung out with the animals in the garden for a while and then got lonely. Does it only take Adam 24 hours to name the animals and realize he needs a woman? The speaker has not considered this. He tells me to take the Bible exactly as it is written, but then he does not do so himself. If male and female were created in a solar day, then this does not reconcile with the Adam and Eve story. I believe God did place his new Creation, Homo Sapien, in the garden. Again, let's take the Bible exactly as it is written. We are told Adam and Eve have two sons. We are not told of any other children prior to this. Yet Cain goes to another land and takes a wife. The guy in your video wants to make up the fact that Adam and Eve had other children, but how can this additive story reconcile with the Bible? It can't. Again, your speaker is not taking the Bible for what it exactly says, but is filling in the blanks to make HIS version of the story fit his interpretation. Cain took a Neanderthal wife and there is dna evidence to back this up. Also, this interpretation of the story can be reconciled with fossil evidence, and it doesn't cram all of Creation into 6,000 years. Creationists are locked into as 6,000 year old earth, because they cling to the notion everything was made in six earthly days, including Adam, and then they lock themselves into the calculations of times for the genealogy of Christ. However, if they actually read Genesis for the information it conveyed to the Jews at the time it was written, they would realize that the earth could have existed for billions of years, and the garden of Eden only in the last six to ten thousand years. They also miss the Jewish tradition of leaving un-noteworthy individuals out of the family tree, so the genealogy fails to account for missing generations. I put the garden at 10,000 years ago and believe God visited the earth to create them both with a new dna structure. Adam would be different than all the hominids before. They would be given the choice. He would no longer act on instinct, but would choose to have God's knowledge of good and evil. An animal does not care that it is naked. An animal has no remorse over killing its food. Adam and Eve would be different. They would see things through God's eyes. Once they ate of the tree, they immediately realized they were naked.
Some of the points I've made can be crammed fit into the Creation story. Yet, I don't really even feel the need to do that to a point. Jesus was fond of telling parables that conveyed a deeper meaning. How do we, as modern day Christians, know that Moses was writing down a literal story. Maybe it was a parable told to generations of Jews to convey the deeper principles of the fall. The Jews at the time could have no the story was a metaphor, but over the course of thousands of years, someone along the way decided it was literal. Who was that? And again, my question for you, who decided Christ command to gouge out your eye was not literal? There are alot of Christians that just want a little neat black and white story that doesn't beg any questions. They need to fit Christianity into a little box because they don't want to think about the bigger questions. I do want to think about the bigger questions. While I believe the Bible is true, God is not the Bible. And God cannot be contained in the Bible. The Bible says God spat stars out of his "mouth" [I don't believe God has a mouth. The Bible also says God is spirit. Obviously, I believe Jesus had a mouth while he was on earth

]. Do you have any idea how big Star R136a1 is? I don't need to make my massive God fit in 66 tiny little books. I believe the Bible is inspired scripture, but it isn't God. It was written by man, and it can't contain God, or even begin to describe how awesome and how massive our Creator is. If most Christians really had a feel for the reality of that, they would be alot more humble, myself included.