Maybe i misspoke, but In terms of concession i meant that i can see how certain people can buy into the creationist myth despite existing scientific evidence. I don’t personally believe in the creationist myth but i can understand how someone with an established faith can use that analogy to justify their position.
I’m asking for other rationales that creationists believe in that may answer questions i have regarding the bible. Maybe it’d help if I listed some things I have problems coming to terms with:
1 - Why did this omnipresent god so favor a minor nomadic sect of people for 3-4000 years before bestowing salvation to the rest of the masses?
2 - Doesn’t the obvious differences between the old testament god and the new testament god bother any of you?
3 - How much of the Bible is actually divinely inspired, and what parts? Why not just make the divinely inspired portions of the Bible - the Bible? Why were other historical accounts rejected for inclusion into the Bible and not the existing historical accounts?
From Pancakes3 - "I’m asking for other rationales that creationists believe in that may answer questions i have regarding the bible. Maybe it’d help if I listed some things I have problems coming to terms with:
1 - Why did this omnipresent god so favor a minor nomadic sect of people for 3-4000 years before bestowing salvation to the rest of the masses?
2 - Doesn’t the obvious differences between the old testament god and the new testament god bother any of you?
3 - How much of the Bible is actually divinely inspired, and what parts? Why not just make the divinely inspired portions of the Bible - the Bible? Why were other historical accounts rejected for inclusion into the Bible and not the existing historical accounts?"
I thought the stories that weren’t included-- Gospel According to Thomas,
Mary Magdalen-- were enough “proof” that it’s all made up.
It’s far more easy to picture an adolescent Jesus turning soldiers
into toads and making a wood piece longer so Joseph
could complete a carpentry task-- in other words, cheat.
And you’re right, why did this god appear to favor 3,000-4,000
out of all of his supposed creations? Why kill all of the Iminites?
Why so mysoginistic?
I still really believe that ignorance is the only fuel
for creationism. Deny the existence of dinosaurs,
ice ages, splitting of one major continent into many…
All these events are never discussed in this bible.
Why take it as anything but a joke?
I am not a creationist, but I’ll go ahead and answer these questions anyway.
God selected the Israelites for a special role in the history of humankind. Specifically, they were the group of people chosen to prepare the way for the messiah.
It did at one time. Then I read the Bible, and discovered that most of the differences that atheists like to complain about do not actually exist.
The short answer is that the early church studied the available texts to determine which ones should be considered accurate and which ones should not be. If you want the long answer with all the details about how the decisions were made, an enormous amount has been written on the subject. Who Made God, by Ravi Zacharias, has a chapter on that subject for beginners, but as I said, if you want more, there’s plenty more out there.
(I’ll remark in passing that many atheists seem to think they’re dropping a bombshell when they mention the non-canonical gospels. I’ve never read them but I’m certainly aware of them. I’m certain also that anyone who’s been through seminary in a mainstream denomination has read them backwards and forwards and discussed and debated them to death. Those who suggest that the churches are trying to cover anything up there are simply wrong.)
Unfortunately, Young Earth Creationists tend not to last long around here. We get one wandering in once in a while, but they tend not to do well on a board dedicated to fighting ignorance.
As for your third question, you’ll get all kinds of answers to it, ranging from those who’ll tell you non of the Bible is divinely inspired and that it’s all rubbish, to those who’ll tell you every jot and tittle of it is, even the bits where it contradicts itself. We don’t have many of the latter around here either. My answer is, simply, “I don’t know.” There are quite a few fascinating books on the subject, though, and some of our members know quite a bit about how which books would be included was decided.
Yes. In my experience, many creationists primarily argue a young earth, keeping the omphalos argument strictly in reserve for use when challenged by someone who is perhaps a little more familiar with some of the more compelling evidence.
You’ve never read anything by Young- Earth Creationist leaders or organizations, have you?
They LOVE dinosaurs, and also go for continental breakup, and they find what they take to be references to these in the Bible. As for ice ages, they’ll often work the Great Flood into that. Their main problem is trying to squeeze everything into a 4000 B.C. Creation. Old-Earth Creationists don’t even have that problem. In fact, OECists concede the possibility for lots of evolutionary activity, except that they hold it to be Divinely guided, and believes that it stops short when it comes to the creation of humanity. OECists do believe Adam & Eve to have been specially created. That’s the main point where they differ from Theistic Evolutionists. I myself vascillate between OECism & TEism.
As for the very existence of alternate “Gospels” as evidence that all the Gospels & the rest of the Bible was just made up, so that also must mean that counterfeit money, and even Monopoly money, is evidence that no authentic money exists. Forgeries of Van Gogh and Rembrandt paintings are evidence that no genuine Van Gogh or Rembrandt works exist.
When I was psych nursing many years ago one of the guys I worked with was trying to convince a group of patients that he believed he was Jesus Christ. He did the water into wine bit with potassium permanganate crystals and the patients immediately became his disciples.
I suppose I am a creationist. I believe God created things. Of course I think He did it a very long time ago, perhaps using the Big Bang. If you are talking about the more Biblical sort of creationism, I think the term is “Young Earth Creationism.”
This shows a basic misunderstanding of a major difference between Judaism and Christianity. Being chosen meant a special relationship with God, some special obligations, and a promise of land and a future. It had nothing to do with salvation. Jews are not saved, and Gentiles are not damned. That was made up by Christians to, as far as I can tell, sell the product.
That’s why Jews don’t try to convert anyone. It isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference in the afterlife, assuming there is one.
While this is true, your premise is not. It is not up to man to prove creationism but God Himself. God may work through His servants, as the Holy Spirit, who is God, does dwell among the believers. The way it is usually done is for a person to ask God to prove it, and be open to Him.
It works on 2 levels, God gives faith, but it is also man that requests it. Faith is a gift of God, not a effort of man, and as such does not require man’s effort, nor does it require proof.
You learned this through man’s ways, give God’s way a chance.
Parents are instructed to raise up their children in the ways of the Lord, and they will not depart from His path. We are instructed to live by faith, not sight. Scriptures point to teaching of the Law (of God), I can’t recall any scriptures about modern schooling except in the case of captured exiles, taught by the conquering kingdoms, such as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
I can’t speak for kanicbird, of course, but I see the dialog going something like this:
God: Hi, Mijin!
Mijin: Who the hell are you?
God: I’m God.
Mijim: You can’t be. You’re my hopes and dreams and everything I adore. God is this thing people kept telling me about that I found to be reprehensible.
While you’re up there, see if you can get Him to explain the Problem of the Rock, and write us a note on your way down.
While this is a clever analogy, it doesn’t actually hold up. We know that Van Gogh and Rembrandt’s works exist, and we can identify the real ones and the forgeries, because we have experts who study this sort of thing.
We also have experts who study the history of the Bible and other contemporary literature, and they tell us that the Apocrypha and other books rejected for inclusion in the modern Bible were (mostly) written at the same time and from the same perspectives.
The only difference between the books of Esdras or the Gospel of Mary is that Jerome, the Nicene delegates, Luther, Gutenberg and so on didn’t like them. So, who’s to say that one book is “real” and another is not?
So which is it? To get this gift of faith, do we have to make the effort to ask for it, or not? None of that makes sense to me.
And what if we had faith, then realized it was based on nothing but hopes and wishes, so we abandoned it? That situation I think describes what’s happened with most of us here. Did God come in and take back our faith?