Damn! By “this thread” I mean, of course, this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141134
I wonder where this will all end…
Ok this is WRONG scientifically if you ignore the ‘in one day’ part. There was light BEFORE the earth was formed.
Now if the first sentence of the bible is scientifically flawed, even as an abstract model of scientific theory, then clearly it is incompatible with the big bang.
And there you have it, end of debate. Mangetout it has ended, Amen 
Illuvatar wrote:
The logical fallacy you just committed, Illuvatar, is called a “straw man”. The debate is not about whether the Bible is scientifically flawed, but about whether a Christian can believe in the Big Bang.
I am a Christian. I believe in the Big Bang. Therefore, Christians can believe in the Big Bang.
Now the debate has ended.
What about Scotsmen? can they believe in the big bang? (I feel sure that’s where we will go next).
Only in the presence of big sheep.
Um…
:d&r:
Libertarian Your not a christian unless you believe in the bible. If you interpret the bible to be literal then in your own little world you are a christian and others are not. If you interpret the bible to be a metaphorical book then in your own little world you are a christian others are not.
Regardless of which type of chrisitan you think you are, the interpretted MEANING of the bible has to be believed inorder to be a christian. Divine beings don’t include a section devoted to the construction of the universe to be IGNORED by followers.
James 2:9 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
You can’t just use the bits you like, if your interpretation is a valid one it must include the WHOLE bible.
In the literal interpretation of the bible, the creation of the universe is scientifically wrong (obviously). In the metaphorical interpretation YOU STILL CAN’T CHANGE THE ORDER OF EVENTS otherwise WHY was it put into the bible in the first place?? for fun?? a fiction section in the divine book??, if the order of events is incorrect then the scientific application does not match and thus it is scientifically wrong (based on the big bang which this debate happens to be about).
Now if you don’t mind I’ll get back to being at the end of the debate. 
See, I told you this
would happen.
How is it, Illuvatar, that you are able to inspect lib’s (‘own little’)private world?
That’s my way of saying that two different sects of one religion that interpret it differently may think the others have got the interpretation wrong.
They may, but one or more of the factions may not feel the other(s) are in such a depth of error as to be disqualified from the faith (a good example of this would be the baptism debate - some immerse, some sprinkle - the sprinklers generally accept that immersion is OK, the reverse is less true, but as far as I know, neither side accuses the other of ‘not being proper Christians’, well, not for that particular reason anyway…)
ILLUVATAR - you are wrong.
You can still be saved, and believe in the BIG BANG.
A saved man is by definition a Christian.
A saved man believes that Christ died for his sins.
He doesn`t necesarilly believe that the universe was created.
I choose to believe in creation.
I believe I am saved.
Your “interpretation” of the Bible does not qaulify your place next to God in Heaven. Your belief that He sent his only Son to die for your sins is your only qaulification.
A man never having read the Bible can still be saved with this simple belief.
whuckfistle this is the definition of a christian:
Ok so I guess your right in the definition. But I saw nothing in the dictionary definition or YOUR definition which said anything about following the torah or any other part of the Bible. So I guess your right again, all you need to be a Christian is to be “A saved man believes that Christ died for his sins.”
Now explain to me why you believe in some bulshit story in the Old Testament about creation if it has nothing to do with being saved?
Congraduations whuckfistle perhaps you ended the “Can Christians believe in the Big Bang?” debate on affirmative (opposite to my argument which said creation and christianity were inseperable). So I guess I was wrong, and you WERE right.
Lookout whuckfistle I think you’ve upset the literalist fundies… :S
Oddly enough, I don’t think the fundamentalists will be upset.
The fundamentalist position, as I understand it, is that all that is necessary for salvation is a personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as your saviour. Many fundamentalists also believe that the bible is factually correct in every respect, but <i>they don’t believe that acceptance of this is necessary for salvation</i>.
As a rule, they might think, if you don’t believe in the inerrancy of scripture, that might cast doubt on the genuineness or completeness of your acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. They would find it very surprising and even suspicious that anyone <i>could</i> accept Jesus Christ and still reject the inerrancy of the Bible, and they would argue that such a stance is mistaken and wrong.
A person genuinely holding such a position would, however, in the fundamentalist view, still be saved.
Mangetout wrote:
Now, Mange. Let’s give the fellow a bit more credit than …
Oops.
Illuvatar wrote:
Are you here just to provide examples of classic logic blunders? Your latest one is called the No True Scotsman fallacy.
And Mange even saw it coming.
To quote an internet friend of mine, the only Big Bang I beleive in is God said it, and Bang it happened! Now just how did that big old rock explode and everything just fall right into their proper places with galazies, solar systems, etc.? What are the odds of that? Pretty slim I imagine. And we’re billions of years old? Come on they’re only guessing. I read (sorry, I retain pieces of info but don’t remember the source) in a book once that a certain amount of dust falls on the moon per year. If it was as old as they say, the astronauts should have sank and been buried. How come there are creation scientist who believe there’s evidence to support a young earth. I’ve heard about that.
The Big bang isn’t about a rock exploding; it’s about the origin and expansion of spacetime.
Oh and the moon dust argument is dead and buried.
Not the “moon dust” theory, please.
Even some creationists have given up on that one –
"There is a recent creationist technical paper on this topic which admits that the depth of dust on the moon is concordant with the mainstream age and history of the solar system (Snelling and Rush 1993). Their abstract concludes with:
“It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking into account the postulated early intense bombardment, does not contradict the evolutionists’ multi-billion year timescale (while not proving it). Unfortunately, attempted counter-responses by creationists have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty calculations. Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming, creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as evidence against an old age for the moon and the solar system.”"
Snelling, Andrew A., and David E. Rush, 1993. “Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System” in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 7, No. 1, pp. 2-42.
When Answers in Genesis gives up an argument, you know it stinks.
I feel more at home here
His4Ever
My dear, you are nothing if not precious. God go with you always.
His4Ever, in what way does what you have to say disagree with what I said earlier in this thread – or does it disagree at all?
The Big Bang theory does not address purposiveness in the Universe nor its causality – in short, while some who accept the Big Bang may think “it just happened to happen,” it does not say that it was chance. It merely describes what appears to be probable way in which the Universe we live in physically came into being, based on the evidence available to astrophysics.
On the other hand, rejecting this evidence because it does not agree with your interpretation that the first chapter of the Bible happens to be a strict narrative account rather than a poetic description of how God created (which is not disagreeing with the Bible, unless you hold that David observed some actual hills rising up, singing, and leaping around like sheep at the coming of the Lord, and reported observing this improbable event in the Psalms, instead of exaggerating for poetic effect the imagined response of the entire world of joy in its Creator.
Bottom line: God created the Universe. God inspired the Bible. If there are falsehoods in either, then one is forced to call Him a liar. On the other hand, the idea that a given passage, such as Genesis 1, is a literal account and not an affirmation, using the literary genre of creation myth for impact, that He created everything by His Word and called it good, that idea is a human construct. And if it forces me to say that God planted false evidence in His Creation, then I reject it, because My God is not a liar.