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  • #46
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    My God cares and all His Creation is noble and purposeful with humanity as the noble Souls and Talisman of His Creation, and does not shame humanity with 'Original Sin' by setting up the first humans for the Fall, and not taking responsibility for his Creation
    Listen hypocrite you said:

    Most people in the world live, die and suffer in poor situations and circumstances they have no control over. Actually by the evidence nature takes care of things from beginning to endings without any apparent Divine intervention.
    Suggesting that God, our view of God, does not care for humanity. Original sin it not the question but God's care for mankind. So how is your God any better when it comes to helping the human condition, or why doesn't your objection apply equally to your false god?
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
      Let’s be honest, it’s abysmal. I am an opponent obviously. I know that people invest much of their personal identity in their religious faith so one appreciates the need to tread carefully. But I also assume that you take part because the debate interests you. So, there is no point in me telling you what I think you want to hear just to be agreeable.
      I am OK with debate but what is the point in debate when the aim is just to antagonise those you debate by trolling? I'm not talking specifically about you here but in the past when I posted here there were quite a few skeptics who made it clear they were not here to learn what we actually believed but were here to argue against some constructed strawman that we didn't actually believe in.
      “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
        Perhaps not, but I was just pointing out where the 4004 years for young earth creationism came from. I'm not sure how young Martin Luther thought the earth was.
        Guess what, he did not equivocate, he stated he believed in a literal Biblical Genesis Creation. He accepted the view by the 2nd century church fathers. Please not I included a second century clear reference to Barnabas a second century Church Father. You responded before I edited it.



        Source: Source: [url

        http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43][/url]

        The first Church Father who mentions the days of Creation is Barnabas (not Paul’s companion) who wrote a letter in AD 130. He says:

        “Now what is said at the very beginning of Creation about the Sabbath, is this: In six days God created the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day; and he rested on that day, and sanctified it. Notice particularly, my children, the significance of ‘he finished them in six days.’ What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years; witness His own saying, ‘Behold, a day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days – six thousand years, that is – there is going to be an end of everything.” (The Epistle of Barnabas 15)2


        Barnabas is referring here to the traditional view of both the Jewish Rabbis and the early church leaders, that the days of Creation were literal six days, but that Psalm 90:4 (and for the Christians, 2 Peter 3:8) prophetically pointed to the coming of the Messiah after 6,000 years (and for the Christians, the return of Christ).3

        This is not to be confused with the modern idea in the church, which wrenches verses out of context and makes the days of Creation to be evolutionary billions of years. Such a view has nothing to do with traditional Christianity; it is an attempt to make the Bible palatable to the masses who have been indoctrinated by the pagan religion of evolutionism.

        © Copyright Original Source



        In reality the Literal Genesis view of Creation in Christianity goes back to the second century AD, and shared by many Rabbis.

        I don't think that these views were enforced though. The young earth creationist theory's are taught now. I don't think the early church fathers were as rigid in their thinking as this. Some of them might have believed in a young earth but I doubt they thought it was mandatory.
        I believe based on the historical evidence most church fathers and as the faithful follows, most Christians believed in a literal Creation and heliocentric universe as described in Genesis. Forced or not the view is clearly the dominant view going back to the 2nd century AD, another as follows:

        Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



        Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 120 – 202), was discipled by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself been taught by the Apostle John. He tells us clearly that a literal Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin on the literal first day of Creation (an idea influenced by the Rabbis). He writes:

        “For it is said, 'There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.' Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die.”4

        When he refers to Adam sinning and bringing death to the human race on the sixth day, he also points out that Christ also died on the sixth day in order to redeem us from the curse of sin. It is impossible to manipulate the text to make Irenaeus look as if he believed in the long-age days of the modernist theologians.

        Agreeing with Barnabas, he explains that the literal six-day Creation points to six thousand years of history before Christ’s return:

        “And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”5

        © Copyright Original Source



        I can cite more if necessary, like the following which reflects a more complete view of Saint Augustine.

        Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



        Firstly, even these three leaders who interpreted Scripture in a more symbolic way than the others, never once tried to mix the long ages of the pagan philosophers like Plato with their teaching. Every single person among the Christian leaders who spoke about Creation said it had happened much less than 10,000 years ago. Augustine (AD 354 – 430) could write:


        “fewer than 6,000 years have passed since man’s first origin,”

        and he referred to the pagans’

        “fairy-tales about reputed antiquity, which our opponents may decide to produce in attempts to controvert the authority of our sacred books....”9

        Liberals are keen to get Augustine on their side because apparently he believed that the days of Creation were symbolic, and not literal. He tells us in his City of God what he understood about the Creation days:


        “The world was in fact made with time, if at the time of its creation change and motion came into existence. This is clearly the situation in the order of the first six or seven days, in which morning and evening are named, until God’s creation was finished on the sixth day, and on the seventh day God’s rest is emphasized as something conveying a mystic meaning. What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

        In our experience, of course, the days with which we are familiar only have an evening because the sun sets, and a morning because the sun rises; whereas those first three days passed without the sun, which was made, we are told, on the fourth day. The narrative does indeed tell that light was created by God…. But what kind of light that was, and with what alternating movement the distinction was made, and what was the nature of this evening and this morning; these are questions beyond the scope of our sensible experience. We cannot understand what happened as it is presented to us; and yet we must believe it without hesitation.”10


        From this we realize that Augustine held to a literal interpretation of the Creation days, although he admitted he had to take it by faith, rather than by reason. In his earlier book (AD 397 – 398), Confessions, he does spiritualize the Genesis account of Creation to communicate with a different audience, but his City of God was completed only four years before his death, and, as shown above, this later book shows a literal understanding of the days of Genesis.

        He did teach an idea known as the “seminal principle,” which some liberals have jumped on with glee, stating that Augustine was a theistic evolutionist. This is, however, reading too much into his work from a post-Darwin mindset. He simply believed that all living things contained within them seeds, which grew to form the complete species, but that all kinds of living things had fixed boundaries. These seeds, he believed, grew rapidly into fully mature living forms during the creation process – there was no thought about millions of years in between each stage of the days of Genesis.

        © Copyright Original Source





        .

        Not talking about world flood or a literal Adam and Eve. I believe that Adam and Eve existed but I believe that they were among the first humans to evolve. As for the world flood, there is a period where we did get floods across the world and this was due to end of the last ice age. I don't count this as a total world flood but I believe that the word used in scripture talks about the world as Noah knew it. So not the whole entire planet but the world around Noah that he personally knew about.
        Adam and Eve, the Fall, and the world flood are an inherent part of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Creation, and the view of the apostles and MOST early church fathers.

        The traditional view of scripture is as God knows it, not Noah


        Here a list of flood accounts.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths
        Not really meaningful since most ancient cultures experience catastrophic local and regional floods and likely understood them as world floods. So what?!?!?!

        In reality it was the pagans, and non-Christians who got it right like Lucretius.
        Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-03-2015, 01:15 PM.
        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
          Guess what, he did not equivocate, he stated he believed in a literal Biblical Genesis Creation. He accepted the view by the 2nd century church fathers. Please not I included a second century clear reference to Barnabas a second century Church Father. You responded before I edited it.



          Source: Source: [url

          http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43][/url]

          The first Church Father who mentions the days of Creation is Barnabas (not Paul’s companion) who wrote a letter in AD 130. He says:

          “Now what is said at the very beginning of Creation about the Sabbath, is this: In six days God created the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day; and he rested on that day, and sanctified it. Notice particularly, my children, the significance of ‘he finished them in six days.’ What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years; witness His own saying, ‘Behold, a day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days – six thousand years, that is – there is going to be an end of everything.” (The Epistle of Barnabas 15)2


          Barnabas is referring here to the traditional view of both the Jewish Rabbis and the early church leaders, that the days of Creation were literal six days, but that Psalm 90:4 (and for the Christians, 2 Peter 3:8) prophetically pointed to the coming of the Messiah after 6,000 years (and for the Christians, the return of Christ).3

          This is not to be confused with the modern idea in the church, which wrenches verses out of context and makes the days of Creation to be evolutionary billions of years. Such a view has nothing to do with traditional Christianity; it is an attempt to make the Bible palatable to the masses who have been indoctrinated by the pagan religion of evolutionism.

          © Copyright Original Source



          In reality the Literal Genesis view of Creation in Christianity goes back to the second century AD, and shared by many Rabbis.



          I believe based on the historical evidence most church fathers and as the faithful follows, most Christians believed in a literal Creation and heliocentric universe as described in Genesis. Forced or not the view is clearly the dominant view going back to the 2nd century AD, another as follows:


          Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



          Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 120 – 202), was discipled by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself been taught by the Apostle John. He tells us clearly that a literal Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin on the literal first day of Creation (an idea influenced by the Rabbis). He writes:

          “For it is said, 'There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.' Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die.”4

          When he refers to Adam sinning and bringing death to the human race on the sixth day, he also points out that Christ also died on the sixth day in order to redeem us from the curse of sin. It is impossible to manipulate the text to make Irenaeus look as if he believed in the long-age days of the modernist theologians.

          Agreeing with Barnabas, he explains that the literal six-day Creation points to six thousand years of history before Christ’s return:

          “And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”5

          © Copyright Original Source



          I can cite more if necessary, like the following which reflects a more complete view of Saint Augustine.

          Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



          Firstly, even these three leaders who interpreted Scripture in a more symbolic way than the others, never once tried to mix the long ages of the pagan philosophers like Plato with their teaching. Every single person among the Christian leaders who spoke about Creation said it had happened much less than 10,000 years ago. Augustine (AD 354 – 430) could write:


          “fewer than 6,000 years have passed since man’s first origin,”

          and he referred to the pagans’

          “fairy-tales about reputed antiquity, which our opponents may decide to produce in attempts to controvert the authority of our sacred books....”9

          Liberals are keen to get Augustine on their side because apparently he believed that the days of Creation were symbolic, and not literal. He tells us in his City of God what he understood about the Creation days:


          “The world was in fact made with time, if at the time of its creation change and motion came into existence. This is clearly the situation in the order of the first six or seven days, in which morning and evening are named, until God’s creation was finished on the sixth day, and on the seventh day God’s rest is emphasized as something conveying a mystic meaning. What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

          In our experience, of course, the days with which we are familiar only have an evening because the sun sets, and a morning because the sun rises; whereas those first three days passed without the sun, which was made, we are told, on the fourth day. The narrative does indeed tell that light was created by God…. But what kind of light that was, and with what alternating movement the distinction was made, and what was the nature of this evening and this morning; these are questions beyond the scope of our sensible experience. We cannot understand what happened as it is presented to us; and yet we must believe it without hesitation.”10


          From this we realize that Augustine held to a literal interpretation of the Creation days, although he admitted he had to take it by faith, rather than by reason. In his earlier book (AD 397 – 398), Confessions, he does spiritualize the Genesis account of Creation to communicate with a different audience, but his City of God was completed only four years before his death, and, as shown above, this later book shows a literal understanding of the days of Genesis.

          He did teach an idea known as the “seminal principle,” which some liberals have jumped on with glee, stating that Augustine was a theistic evolutionist. This is, however, reading too much into his work from a post-Darwin mindset. He simply believed that all living things contained within them seeds, which grew to form the complete species, but that all kinds of living things had fixed boundaries. These seeds, he believed, grew rapidly into fully mature living forms during the creation process – there was no thought about millions of years in between each stage of the days of Genesis.

          © Copyright Original Source

          The source is a creationist website in concerns to this when they are citing their personal opinion. The Hebrew word for day is being interpreted here to mean a literal 24 hour period and are denying a possible definition of the word meaning an indefinite period of time. They are also ignoring the structure of Genesis in it's original Hebrew form as being poetic and thus not necessarily some to be taken in an completely literal format, which is funny because they ignore the other two passages by explaining them away as metaphors. This link would suggest that they are wrong.

          I think I'll take the view of biblical scholars rather than young earth creationists. Even you have to agree Shunyadragon that young earth creationists don't exactly use a very good methodology when reaching their conclusions.


          Adam and Eve, the Fall, and the world flood are an inherent part of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Creation, and the view of the apostles and MOST early church fathers.

          The traditional view of scripture is as God knows it, not Noah
          I don't agree with that assessment at all. The language used is poetic as I suggested so I don't see why you take a poem as being strictly literal.




          Not really meaningful since most ancient cultures experience catastrophic local and regional floods and likely understood them as world floods. So what?!?!?!

          In reality it was the pagans, and non-Christians who got it right like Lucretius.
          I also provided an explanation why. i.e. The end of the last ice age.


          EDIT: Seems to me that the early church fathers quoted by all sides when arguing over the age of the earth but with different interpretations.

          Last edited by Darth Ovious; 05-03-2015, 01:59 PM. Reason: Addition
          “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
            .. in the past when I posted here there were quite a few skeptics who made it clear they were not here to learn what we actually believed but were here to argue against some constructed strawman that we didn't actually believe in.
            That problem cuts both ways.
            “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
            “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
            “not all there” - you know who you are

            Comment


            • #51
              [QUOTE=Darth Ovious;193662][QUOTE=shunyadragon;193655]Guess what, he did not equivocate, he stated he believed in a literal Biblical Genesis Creation. He accepted the view by the 2nd century church fathers. Please not I included a second century clear reference to Barnabas a second century Church Father. You responded before I edited it.



              Source: Source: [url

              http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43][/url]

              The first Church Father who mentions the days of Creation is Barnabas (not Paul’s companion) who wrote a letter in AD 130. He says:

              “Now what is said at the very beginning of Creation about the Sabbath, is this: In six days God created the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day; and he rested on that day, and sanctified it. Notice particularly, my children, the significance of ‘he finished them in six days.’ What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years; witness His own saying, ‘Behold, a day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days – six thousand years, that is – there is going to be an end of everything.” (The Epistle of Barnabas 15)2


              Barnabas is referring here to the traditional view of both the Jewish Rabbis and the early church leaders, that the days of Creation were literal six days, but that Psalm 90:4 (and for the Christians, 2 Peter 3:8) prophetically pointed to the coming of the Messiah after 6,000 years (and for the Christians, the return of Christ).3

              This is not to be confused with the modern idea in the church, which wrenches verses out of context and makes the days of Creation to be evolutionary billions of years. Such a view has nothing to do with traditional Christianity; it is an attempt to make the Bible palatable to the masses who have been indoctrinated by the pagan religion of evolutionism.

              © Copyright Original Source



              In reality the Literal Genesis view of Creation in Christianity goes back to the second century AD, and shared by many Rabbis.



              I believe based on the historical evidence most church fathers and as the faithful follows, most Christians believed in a literal Creation and heliocentric universe as described in Genesis. Forced or not the view is clearly the dominant view going back to the 2nd century AD, another as follows:


              Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



              Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 120 – 202), was discipled by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself been taught by the Apostle John. He tells us clearly that a literal Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin on the literal first day of Creation (an idea influenced by the Rabbis). He writes:

              “For it is said, 'There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.' Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die.”4

              When he refers to Adam sinning and bringing death to the human race on the sixth day, he also points out that Christ also died on the sixth day in order to redeem us from the curse of sin. It is impossible to manipulate the text to make Irenaeus look as if he believed in the long-age days of the modernist theologians.

              Agreeing with Barnabas, he explains that the literal six-day Creation points to six thousand years of history before Christ’s return:

              “And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”5

              © Copyright Original Source



              I can cite more if necessary, like the following which reflects a more complete view of Saint Augustine.

              Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



              Firstly, even these three leaders who interpreted Scripture in a more symbolic way than the others, never once tried to mix the long ages of the pagan philosophers like Plato with their teaching. Every single person among the Christian leaders who spoke about Creation said it had happened much less than 10,000 years ago. Augustine (AD 354 – 430) could write:


              “fewer than 6,000 years have passed since man’s first origin,”

              and he referred to the pagans’

              “fairy-tales about reputed antiquity, which our opponents may decide to produce in attempts to controvert the authority of our sacred books....”9

              Liberals are keen to get Augustine on their side because apparently he believed that the days of Creation were symbolic, and not literal. He tells us in his City of God what he understood about the Creation days:


              “The world was in fact made with time, if at the time of its creation change and motion came into existence. This is clearly the situation in the order of the first six or seven days, in which morning and evening are named, until God’s creation was finished on the sixth day, and on the seventh day God’s rest is emphasized as something conveying a mystic meaning. What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

              In our experience, of course, the days with which we are familiar only have an evening because the sun sets, and a morning because the sun rises; whereas those first three days passed without the sun, which was made, we are told, on the fourth day. The narrative does indeed tell that light was created by God…. But what kind of light that was, and with what alternating movement the distinction was made, and what was the nature of this evening and this morning; these are questions beyond the scope of our sensible experience. We cannot understand what happened as it is presented to us; and yet we must believe it without hesitation.”10


              From this we realize that Augustine held to a literal interpretation of the Creation days, although he admitted he had to take it by faith, rather than by reason. In his earlier book (AD 397 – 398), Confessions, he does spiritualize the Genesis account of Creation to communicate with a different audience, but his City of God was completed only four years before his death, and, as shown above, this later book shows a literal understanding of the days of Genesis.

              He did teach an idea known as the “seminal principle,” which some liberals have jumped on with glee, stating that Augustine was a theistic evolutionist. This is, however, reading too much into his work from a post-Darwin mindset. He simply believed that all living things contained within them seeds, which grew to form the complete species, but that all kinds of living things had fixed boundaries. These seeds, he believed, grew rapidly into fully mature living forms during the creation process – there was no thought about millions of years in between each stage of the days of Genesis.

              © Copyright Original Source



              The source is a creationist website in concerns to this when they are citing their personal opinion. The Hebrew word for day is being interpreted here to mean a literal 24 hour period and are denying a possible definition of the word meaning an indefinite period of time. They are also ignoring the structure of Genesis in it's original Hebrew form as being poetic and thus not necessarily some to be taken in an completely literal format, which is funny because they ignore the other two passages by explaining them away as metaphors. This link would suggest that they are wrong.
              The source you may object to, and of course I do not agree with is nonetheless accurate concerning what the church fathers believed including St. Augustine, which clearly discounts your contention that the literal interpretation is a recent phenomenon (since ~1600?).

              I was not considering them right or wrong in the context of the argument. They were cited to support that this is the dominant belief in history, which the church fathers believed. Your argument that the literal belief in Genesis is relatively modern, since ~1600 AD does not work. This problem is one of the reasons, the link between Doctrine and Dogma and the belief in a literal interpretation of scripture, that I consider the traditional Christian arguments far far weaker then the atheist arguments, and not worthy of my support like other ancient world views of God..



              I think I'll take the view of biblical scholars rather than young earth creationists. Even you have to agree Shunyadragon that young earth creationists don't exactly use a very good methodology when reaching their conclusions.
              This view is quite modern and not universally held. Actually as I cited likely only half or less of the Christians in the USA.


              I don't agree with that assessment at all. The language used is poetic as I suggested so I don't see why you take a poem as being strictly literal.
              My argument is not based on the modern interpretations made by liberal Christianity and you, it is: 'What is the dominant beliefs throughout Christian history?' Despite the selective reference oft quoted from St. Augustine he believed in a literal Biblical Creation as described in Genesis.

              I also provided an explanation why. i.e. The end of the last ice age.
              Your arguing a modern understanding based on science, which is what I do. My argument concerns the reality of the traditional Christian view of Creation which has dominated most of the history of Christianity up until the present, and remains prevalent today. The literal belief in world and human history based in Genesis. This not a prevalent view that began after ~1600 AD.
              Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-03-2015, 02:18 PM.
              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

              go with the flow the river knows . . .

              Frank

              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                That problem cuts both ways.
                Indeed, but the question is are you part of the problem?

                I do admit that there are plenty of Christians who are a problem. They usually believe in some wishy washy happy clap trap emotional form of Christianity and think that God should be thanked for giving you a parking space.
                “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                Comment


                • #53
                  Sorry it was getting a bit messy, so I've removed the citations since they have already been made previously.

                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  The source you may object to, and of course I do not agree with is nonetheless accurate concerning what the church fathers believed including St. Augustine, which clearly discounts your contention that the literal interpretation is a recent phenomenon (since ~1600?).
                  In terms of claiming it as part of orthodoxy then I would be correct. The early church fathers had different views on the creations but none of them thought their interpretation was necessary for orthodoxy. So in other words they could have been wrong on a personal level and it didn't really matter.

                  I was not considering them right or wrong in the context of the argument. They were cited to support that this is the dominant belief in history, which the church fathers believed. Your argument that the literal belief in Genesis is relatively modern, since ~1600 AD does not work. This problem is one of the reasons, the link between Doctrine and Dogma and the belief in a literal interpretation of scripture, that I consider the traditional Christian arguments far far weaker then the atheist arguments, and not worthy of my support like other ancient world views of God.
                  I don't think any of them had a dominant belief. A lot of them had varied views, even with some being in agreement about some things. However I think what I mean by Young Earth Creationism is that even though some of them had a 24 hour belief, they didn't enforce their view as being the only correct one with no other option being possible. My source also says this.

                  I suppose when I said that Young Earth Creationism didn't come about until the 1600's I meant that it wasn't really considered a must have view. i.e. Part of orthodoxy.





                  This view is quite modern and not universally held. Actually as I cited likely only half or less of the Christians in the USA.
                  This is correct, but the current trend is actually a modern one as well in terms of it's popularity. It wasn't always held this way. It's been up and down throughout history.




                  My argument is not based on the modern interpretations made by liberal Christianity and you, it is: 'What is the dominant beliefs throughout Christian history?' Despite the selective reference oft quoted from St. Augustine he believed in a literal Biblical as described in Genesis.
                  It's been a mixture. Yes a lot of them held to a belief of a 24 hour period but they did not enforce it as part of orthodoxy and there was room for disagreement as I cited before. Also more recently a lot of churches accepted evolution. The catholic church accepted evolution for instance. Young Earth Creationism had a resurgence in the 1920's which has led to the current situation in America today.



                  Your arguing a modern understanding based on science, which is what I do. My argument concerns the reality of the traditional Christian view of Creation which has dominated most of the history of Christianity up until the present, and remains prevalent today. The literal belief in world and human history based in Genesis. This not a prevalent view that began after ~1600 AD.
                  I would disagree with it being dominant. You might say it was the most popular view but then again they agreed it was not an important one. Today's young earth creationists hold it as an important view and demand it as part of orthodoxy which didn't happen until the 1600's and even then there was a resurgence in the 1920's in regards to it.
                  Last edited by Darth Ovious; 05-03-2015, 03:01 PM. Reason: Grammar
                  “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

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                  • #54
                    Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
                    Indeed, but the question is are you part of the problem?

                    I do admit that there are plenty of Christians who are a problem. They usually believe in some wishy washy happy clap trap emotional form of Christianity and think that God should be thanked for giving you a parking space.
                    The problem (from my perspective) is that people’s religious views are not ordinary ideas about the world like those that philosophers and scientists tackle. They are often a very important element of personal and cultural identity and they are cocooned like no other idea. When in conflict with worldly truths they are defended against all reason.
                    “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                    “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                    “not all there” - you know who you are

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                    • #55
                      Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                      The problem (from my perspective) is that people’s religious views are not ordinary ideas about the world like those that philosophers and scientists tackle. They are often a very important element of personal and cultural identity and they are cocooned like no other idea. When in conflict with worldly truths they are defended against all reason.
                      I disagree. Philosophers mostly agree that there is no problem in holding a well thought out theist/religious view of the world. You have already mentioned William Lane Craig and William Lane Craig is a Philosopher.

                      In terms of science it's a different topic really. It's dedicated to studying the mechanisms of the Universe. It stills relies on a philosophy in order to make predictions and theories in how those mechanisms work.
                      “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

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                      • #56
                        Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                        If things must be created and if God is the creator of things and He is a thing then He also was created and His creator was created, and so on. In Religio-think the infinite regression is avoided by supposing that God is timeless or outside time or has existed forever or something of that sort. The details are never explained and you are just supposed to be stupid enough to believe that the person saying such a thing knows something that you don’t. But let’s suppose that there was God-time before He made the world and God inhabited that ‘space’ for all possible God-times. If that space is not infinite then God is not infinite and He must have been created. If that space is infinite then God is infinitely lazy. OR, this world and you in particular is the infinitely least important thing on His agenda.

                        What I notice about the world is that God, at the very best, is not a hard worker. [Christians will excuse infinite God-idleness] What are we supposed to be praising Him for exactly?
                        What is created or caused is not God. An infinite regression has no first cause, but still has an uncaused cause. And there also needs to be an uncaused existence. And what is uncaused needs no God. What is uncaused is eternal. All causes are temporal. An uncaused cause is both eternal being uncaused and temporal being a cause.
                        . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

                        . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

                        Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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                        • #57
                          Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                          What is created or caused is not God. An infinite regression has no first cause, but still has an uncaused cause. And there also needs to be an uncaused existence. And what is uncaused needs no God. What is uncaused is eternal. All causes are temporal. An uncaused cause is both eternal being uncaused and temporal being a cause.
                          Put in other words, the universe is eternal and uncaused and what is temporal are the changes that take place within the universe. In the words of Spinoza, things that begin to exist are temporal with respect to themselves, but they are eternal with respect to their cause. The point being that the universe, the cause and the effects, are all one and the same substance, and the substance is eternal. If the substance, the cause, is God, then so too would be the effects.

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                          • #58
                            Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
                            Sorry it was getting a bit messy, so I've removed the citations since they have already been made previously.

                            In terms of claiming it as part of orthodoxy then I would be correct. The early church fathers had different views on the creations but none of them thought their interpretation was necessary for orthodoxy. So in other words they could have been wrong on a personal level and it didn't really matter.

                            I don't think any of them had a dominant belief. A lot of them had varied views, even with some being in agreement about some things. However I think what I mean by Young Earth Creationism is that even though some of them had a 24 hour belief, they didn't enforce their view as being the only correct one with no other option being possible. My source also says this.

                            I suppose when I said that Young Earth Creationism didn't come about until the 1600's I meant that it wasn't really considered a must have view. i.e. Part of orthodoxy.

                            This is correct, but the current trend is actually a modern one as well in terms of it's popularity. It wasn't always held this way. It's been up and down throughout history.

                            It's been a mixture. Yes a lot of them held to a belief of a 24 hour period but they did not enforce it as part of orthodoxy and there was room for disagreement as I cited before. Also more recently a lot of churches accepted evolution. The catholic church accepted evolution for instance. Young Earth Creationism had a resurgence in the 1920's which has led to the current situation in America today.

                            I would disagree with it being dominant. You might say it was the most popular view but then again they agreed it was not an important one. Today's young earth creationists hold it as an important view and demand it as part of orthodoxy which didn't happen until the 1600's and even then there was a resurgence in the 1920's in regards to it.
                            This line of reasoning does not work it all. I am not sure what you would call Orthodoxy, but I contend there was NO OTHER alternative among the church fathers, even Saint Augustine. If you feel there was an alternate view, please provide a reference. Even in the history of Christianity there is no alternative until crack began to appear in the Renaissance with the failure of the Heliocentric view of the universe, and rise of science. Feeling the heat the doctrinal intiatives you have noted beginning in the !600s. The issue warmed up with botanist John Ray, in his book The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation (1692), and later Linnaeus proposed a primitive form of variation of species.

                            As far as recent history, after Darwin published his 'Origin of the Species' there was a movement among progressive evangelicals to accept this and propose a Theistic Evolution and an ancient earth, at least millions of years old.

                            The monkey wrench in the works. Williams Jennings Bryan in 'In His Image,' and a little known popular Evangelist, William Bell Riley, began to seriously challenge the scientific view of the history of the earth, life and humans. Their views were grounded in the works of the Church Fathers.
                            Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-03-2015, 07:40 PM.
                            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                            go with the flow the river knows . . .

                            Frank

                            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

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                            • #59
                              Originally posted by JimL View Post
                              . . . the cause and the effects, are all one and the same substance, . . .
                              . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

                              . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

                              Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                                This line of reasoning does not work it all. I am not sure what you would call Orthodoxy, but I contend there was NO OTHER alternative among the church fathers, even Saint Augustine. If you feel there was an alternate view, please provide a reference. Even in the history of Christianity there is no alternative until crack began to appear in the Renaissance with the failure of the Heliocentric view of the universe, and rise of science. Feeling the heat the doctrinal intiatives you have noted beginning in the !600s. The issue warmed up with botanist John Ray, in his book The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation (1692), and later Linnaeus proposed a primitive form of variation of species.

                                As far as recent history, after Darwin published his 'Origin of the Species' there was a movement among progressive evangelicals to accept this and propose a Theistic Evolution and an ancient earth, at least millions of years old.

                                The monkey wrench in the works. Williams Jennings Bryan in 'In His Image,' and a little known popular Evangelist, William Bell Riley, began to seriously challenge the scientific view of the history of the earth, life and humans. Their views were grounded in the works of the Church Fathers.
                                I did provide a reference. I provided it in my previous post and I even quoted from it. I'm not sure what else you want me to do

                                Also not to mention all groups quote the early church fathers to support their views which is also noted in this document.

                                “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                                Comment

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