just found this book at the library, have not opened it's contents, what do you guys think /lit/?
do you think it's possible God created the world and us and then determined it would be best for us to be evolutionary biologists?
http://www.amazon.com/God-creationist-religious-against-creation-science/dp/0684179938/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450540861&sr=8-2&keywords=is+god+a+creationist
>>7480810
How the hell should we know what God thinks. He sends us Bibles but then we fuck around with them mistranslating and misinterpreting that shit and it seems like he doesn't give a fuck what we do with them.
>>7480810
>God
Who is this again?
>>7480870
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
>>7480810
My church small group recently went over the Genesis story. It's been a challenging re reading for most of us who had grown content with a sort of "it's a loose metaphor / it's not literal" understanding of Genesis 1-3 and how it relates to scientific understandings of origin.
The greater conclusion that has emerged from my small group is this: the text of Genesis 1-3 is an ancient creation story with a functionalist mode, its purpose is to convey the telos behind creation, not necessarily the means or material of creation. The creation story affirms God's dominion and sovereignty over the world, its main concern is not how he did it but why. God demonstrates in the creation story a desire to bring order out of non-order (the void. waters. what have you) and he assigns humans as his chief earthly agents in this ordering of things. The seven days are not the complete ordering, rather the initial ordering process, in which god assigns and divides the world its categories, i.e. provides function and order to the general scope of creation. The completion of his ordering will occur in the Second Coming, with New Jerusalem. Until then, us humans are charged with promoting order within the world, generating more "good" for God's glory.
The fall represents, according to my small group leader, a "disordering" of order, not void but a falling apart of initially ordered things. This leaves the world with three states of being: Non-Order [natural, amoral chaos], Disorder [sin, a turning away from God's order] and Order [God's desired state of the world, organized to reflect His glory].
None of this negates scientific understanding, which is material.
I'm just paraphrasing what I think my small group leader was trying to convey, and to be honest, I'm a little hesitant myself to jump on board with this "functionalist/non/dis/order" view because it seems to generate more ambiguity after "dealing with" the initially problematic relationship we have with the text.
>>7480955
A more relatable "functional" narrative which we can understand would be something like the more dramatized versions of a scientific "primordial man / out of Africa" theory. You know, you might hear a story about mankind's journey through the harsh terrain and wilderness towards Europe, or perhaps through Beringia towards North America.
We know that this is not the means by which humans spread, not through some great pack-up road trip where Ugg said to Uggette, "We're going North! We're going... OUT. OF. AFRICA." (though in typing this I definitely want to see that elementary school play). We can understand that this probably happened through millennia of local migration for a variety of factors, none of which involved a map.
Nevertheless, the purpose behind these broad, dramatized versions of theories is to manifest humanist ideas within historical reality. How greater is our march towards human progress if we can do it with the knowledge that Homo Erectus walked as a link in the same chain we walked in? And truly, though we can be almost certain that Ugg was not a humanist, we are in a certain way heirs to his (and the countless other early humans') efforts in seeking survival.
So to the Genesis story reflects a desire to manifest God's plan for the ordering of the world within the world's very origins. How greater are we going to pursue a life aimed at God and his structure (law) if we know that the very animals and plants and sun and moon are subject to their own laws from God?
>>7480955
i often consider that God may create time at the same time that he creates the earth and the heavens? thus you have like carbon dating, and the possibility of evolution, if it's as accurate as many people say it is.
it's like for our enjoyment, you know,? and God's enjoyment. surely this is no easy thing to consider, lol
If God is axiomatic then you have stated his existence a priori to presenting any argument for it.
i) God exists.
ii) God exists'.
For i) to hold it must be falsifiable, we must show its negation ii) could be true, otherwise i) has no meaning.
To satisfy ii) I shall boot up my universal computer, which is the size of the universe and ask it to determine a solution.
Hello computer, show solution to (ii)
>Not yet
How long will it take to compute?
>Not yet
I ask you again, show conditions that hold for (ii)
>Not yet
Ok you wise ass, does God not exist?
>Not yet
...Does God exist?
>Not yet
In fact, ii) is indeterminable and i) is meaningless if one can't show its negation.
It's safe to conclude God both does and does not exist.
>>7481101
this is my favourit pome of all
>>7481133
Good to hear, m8.
My church circle is heavily influenced by some smart people at Regent College here in Vancouver. For this stuff, I'm pretty sure my small group leader is quoting Iain Provan's lectures 90% of the time. He is a smart man:
https://vimeo.com/63361717
