Stat, when you are speaking to a creationist there are a lot of things you can't just take on faith (har har). The concept of extinction in general was never easily accepted by the church, much less a world which looks foriegn to genesis as does the age of the dinosaurs. The dogma clearly states the Earth was created in 6 days with God specifically and individually creating each specific form of life on the planet. If each species was individually crafted by God, then why would there be so much change over time? Why would an infallable being have to wash the slate clean so many times before he got to us? It casts doubt onto man's role in the creation and the verasity of the specific text which is used to describe origin. As such many bible literallists (though less and less as time has passed) have said that the dinosaurs never existed, but were instead planted by wicked men, or the devil himself, to cast doubt into the hearts of the God fearing. The point is, there is no creationist cannon, how one person reconciles science into their faith can be very different than does another. You don't just get to say "of course" anything when discussing matters of faith, because there is so much variance in personal interpretation. Personally, if evolution was good enough for the rest of God's creation, I just can't see why it isn't also good enough for us. That doesn't mean we can't also be special, it just means we can't have popped out of no where fully formed as we are. In any event, my purpose was to guage just what kind of creationist Netslave is. Stat, I'm not sure what you mean when you say nobody interprets the Bible literally. You can't compare Genesis to Jesus' parables, which are clearly intended to metaphorical. A great bulk of the bible, particularly the old testament, is stated as fact... and there are a great number of people (particularly in this country) which take it as such. You can't just take it as read what parts are prepared to take "literally" and what parts they are prepared to offer as ambiguous. Netslave is clearly prepared to allow a great deal of ambiguity into his definition of "literal"... I was just trying to guage what the limits were.
I've been on plenty of long such threads here and the only 'dinosaurs didn't exist' stuff I've seen has come from people accusing some generic "them" of believing that.
Stat, I don't interpret the bible literally. In fact, I outright disregard entire passages as being contrivancies to answer unknowable questions. In regards to your final sentence, my point is that the term "literalist" covers a lot of ground and it is not safe to make assumptions that such a person believes that humans are billions of years late to the "life" party on Earth. There are many people in this country who believe in no uncertain terms that the earth is 6000 years old. There isn't a lot of wiggle room in that number for a dinosaurs. This is why I threw that out there.
netslave, I don't see the point in pursuing this line again, and I think I'm just about done talking about it in general. The gaps between your beliefs and mine are just too far to bridge. Ultimately, I don't believe that genesis is divinely inspired, and as such I find much of your "logical" assumptions to be anything but... and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I think I'm ready to walk away. That said, let's go pick on the waiters some more, that's fun.
I'm happy to reciprocate. If you've got questions about my belief system, such as they are, I'm happy to share. Ask away.
1. Who do you think God is? I'm not sure what you are trying to ask, and as such I'm not sure how to answer. Therefore the only answer is VY. 2. Do you believe there is a purpose to this life? If so, what might it be? I do, but I have no idea what it might be. I believe strongly if there is a purpose, we were given all we needed to realize it at birth. That the realization of God's plan would require access to documents which were more or less accessabile depending on the geography of your birth does not sound like the plan of an omnipotent being. I have an inate drive to achieve a lifestyle in which myself and my family are safe and prosperous... so I believe that must be part of God's plan. 3. Repeat of my prior question: Why do you think that we are so exceptional? I'm not sure that we are. Clearly we possess attributes other life has not had to this point... but that has been true in every era of life on this planet in which there was a dominant species, plant or animal.
Gotcha. I believe God to be an ineffable omnipotent creator. I don't believe he intervenes in creation on people's behalf. I tend to view God personified in my thoughts, so I would say that I see God as a discrete entity. Is that what you were shooting for?
That is an extention of the "everything I need to fulfill God's will I have from birth" proviso. Which is to say, when I consider God, I consider him having a discrete form. I can't say if I am actually experiencing God in my thoughts, or if I am just considering him, but it is all I have to go on, you know?
I just wanted to make a comment regarding the issue of our current bodies vs. heavenly bodies. Some issues were raised like: why would current bodies be so imperfect and why would a creator give us these bodies first as opposed to the heavenly bodies that are apparently superior. The Bible does answer these questions. First, our bodies now are exhibiting the results of the Fall found in Genesis 3 and commented on in Romans 8. People were origninally created to be immortal according to Genesis 1-2. Chaos, sickness, and death was only introduced into nature after the fall. Our bodies are now cursed because of sin, so we die. Beyond that there is now natural degradation that shows up as defects and abnormalities. The effects of the Fall can also be the explanation for why there are parts of our body that don't seem to do anything like the appendix, etc... We possibly have lost functionalities that our bodies once possessed. Of course the other option is that we just don't know the functions of our "function-less parts" and we will discover them later. The heavenly bodies are in many ways a return to the original creation. People with these immortal bodies can't have sin though, so God dealt with the sin aspect first. Anyway, that is just an aside.
