First off, I really, really don’t want this to become a debate. I’m Methodist, and according to the church, God created the Earth(and everything else?) in 7 days. Then you have Adam and Eve and all that good stuff. Problem is, I don’t believe Adam and Eve existed as such. I’m a firm believer in evolution and can’t bring myself to discredit all the research that’s been done to prove it. So, is there a group with the same, or almost the same, beliefs as the Methodists, but with the exception that evolution doesn’t deny the existance of God?
I’m a United Methodist. While we do study the Bible and accept various truths garnered from it, I believe there is an understanding to accept modern science, even though it may diminish or oppose some of the stories of the Bible.
We just went to a 3-week seminar on what Methodists believe, but we focused on sin, grace, and Methodism. I’ll look in our text to see how it addresses modern science.
Although this might be getting into Great Debates: even the Creation story follows generally the order that things were created in our solar system:
[ol]
[li]heavens and Earth (Earth and the rest of the bodies of the solar system)[/li][li]light (The sun reached critical size, pressure, and temperature to “ignite” its nuclear “fire”)[/li][li]expanse between the waters (heat from the Sun evaporated water from the oceans and also helped release other gases. Waters above are clouds, waters below are oceans, heaven is the atmosphere)[/li][li]dry land appeared (crust had cooled enough so that upthrustings stayed up, forming islands and continents)[/li][li]vegetation appeared (algaes in the seas, which produced oxygen, which lead to…)[/li][li]lights in the heavens (new oxygen rich atmosphere cleared the generally murky atmosphere. then the stars, sun, and moon were visible as distinct objects.)[/li][li]living creatures (first sea, then land animals appeared and evolved)[/li][li]mankind (evolved from earlier animals)[/li][/ol]
There nothing in the Bible that says how long God’s days are. (It wasn’t until the 4th day that there was a way to tell daytime from nighttime.) And who’s to say that He hasn’t either guided evolution to its current condition, or at least He instituted the Laws of Physics that ended up starting the DNA-based life we have on Earth.
I do believe in evolution and other sciences. But I’m open to the idea that a Supreme Being at least started the ball rolling.
It looks like I jumped the gun on this one. I just called my pastor a few minutes ago, and realized I probably should have gone to him first. Apparently, he believes in evolution as well and told me not to worry about it. He just thinks God helped evolution along until he came up with us. He also said he thought Adam and Eve was just a myth to explain things and, while a good story, is just a story. So, I guess my question’s answered. Sorry about the extra thread.
EOM.
I’m in AWB’s camp in my belief that there is “truth” to Genesis but it ain’t exactly a blueprint for the universe. I believe God told Moses what he was capable of understanding.
For that and other reasons I attend an evangelical Lutheran church. God gave us brains to figure out the details left out of the word. The ELCA doesn’t judge your faith on belief that the world was created in 144 hours.
I’m a recovering fundie - have my 20 year chip - so I know from whence I speak. I’m glad you were able to reconcile this with your faith.
As a Jew, I similarly believe that the “days” were or indeterminate length, and that there is nothing illogical about God guiding evolution along.
But I’ve always been bothered by the apparent misplacement, that Genesis tells of the extraterrestrial bodies being created after plant life was already established on earth.
Thank you for showing me that those verses can be understood as those bodies becoming visible at that point, and not necessarily being created then.
Yes, he did. Why do ask like that?
Also, what is EOM?
In this case, it means that the OP has been resolved.
Not too surprising. The Roman Catholic Church and many other Christian religions feel the same way.
btw, the Theory of Evolution does not deny the existence of God. It has nothing to say on the matter of religion. People assume it denies the existence of God because it contradicts literal interpretations of scripture.
I’ve always felt that the bit about the 7 “days” being some other incredibly long time period is a total copout. A day is the time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis (either that or half if it, from sunrise to sunset) nothing else. Why would God use a word that everyone understands to mean something completely different? Later in the same book of Genesis, it rains for 40 “days” and 40 nights during Noah’s flood. How many billions of years was that?
This is a legitimate question. I could give you an answer that you’d simply reject out of hand, but I’d much rather give you one which fits your own point of view. To do that, I need to understand your point of view a little better.
How do you understand the word “day” in this verse, being that although light and darkness did exist, the earth was still unformed and void? The firmament (however you understand that) was not created until the second day, the dry land not until the third, and the lights in the sky not until the fourth day.
I’ve long felt that anyone studying the Bible should learn another language and try translating something before getting stuck on a particular word or phrase.
God didn’t use the word “day” to describe creation. Nor did the human transcriber. English didn’t exist yet. The Hebrew word is “Yom” which can be translated into day, but can be translated as “a time” with equal validity.