Creationism

We can't have a debate if we're going to use faith as a trump card. If we agree that some of The Bible is written figuratively and in parables (Jesus clearly taught with parables as it was a Jewish custom) then why arbitrarily elevate Genesis to the level of scientific fact? The author(s) of Genesis (they're unknown) believed God lived in the clouds or up on a mountain and they could reach Heaven by building the Tower of Babel high enough. They believed the moon was the size of a baseball and that stars were tiny points of light in the sky. They had no concept of the stars being suns or that there were planets around those other stars. They had no concept of planets for that matter. The certainly believed the sun went around The Earth.

If we're free to pick and choose saying "this is fact" but "this is a figure of speech" then I can make The Bible say anything I want and so can you. Genesis gives two different accounts of creation and they contradict each other so they can't both be right unless they're parables. The authors were not writing a scientific account of creation but a parable teaching the consequence of sin and turning away from God.

We see how a baby starts as a single cell and evolves into a fully formed baby. There's no doubt as to how God does it nowadays. Why should it be so strange to understand she did it that way in the past for the formation of all life to see what interesting things would come up? Evolution being true does not mean there is no God. There's plenty of Christians, like Rev. Michael Dowd, that Thank God for Evolution and so do I.

I always get confused when people use the word "evolution".. because most of the time it's not evolution at all..

Evolution:
Biology . change in the gene pool (DNA) of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

The baby analogy is metamorphosis (Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism.) as the DNA of the baby doesn't change.

Most other things people refer to as "evolution" are adaptation, not evolution.

Am I incorrect in my thinking with these terms?
I've been reading this thread and until this point didn't have any real questions, just enjoying the discussion. I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

Reliah wrote: I always get confused when people use the word "evolution".. because most of the time it's not evolution at all..

Evolution:
Biology . change in the gene pool (DNA) of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

The baby analogy is metamorphosis (Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism.) as the DNA of the baby doesn't change.

Most other things people refer to as "evolution" are adaptation, not evolution.

Am I incorrect in my thinking with these terms?
I've been reading this thread and until this point didn't have any real questions, just enjoying the discussion. I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

You are right about the term evolution. The word evolves has a little more latitude especially when I defend my use by artistic license . Develop gradually, esp. from a simple to a more complex form. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evolves

I'm showing an analogy. For the sake of integrity feel free to substitute the sentence "We see how a baby starts as a single cell and evolves into a fully formed baby" with "We see how a baby starts as a single cell and metamorphosizes into a fully formed baby."

My big question is if one says "I believe we can agree that the four corners, in this scripture is again being used figuratively. In fact, the entire chapter [of Isaiah] is an allusion, a bit of biblical foreshadowing if you will. Not to be taken at face value" then why can't I claim the same about chapters in Genesis?

If you have not visited http://www.thankgodforevolution.com/ I highly recommend you do especially since you enjoy these types of discussions.

What do christians (specifically creationists) feel about the big bang theory being first formulated by a christian priest? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

I consider myself Christian and don't have a problem with the big bang theory as I understand it.
If God wanted it done that way, what's going to stop Him?

The more I learn about astronomy and have an open heart to the creator and the everflowing Force, the more I understand of the begining event which we call "big bang". This term fails to describe the event. I beleive in a creator and I believe in the EVENT and when I look through my telescope at distant galaxies I let my heart take over and I beleive.

But do You think that the Creator created Big Bang which created the universe? I assume, that if You believe in Big Bang, You can no longer believe in it as God's way of creating our universe, because You can only narrow down to two possible scenarios of the creation: God created the Big Bang and therefore, created the means of developing the universe, not the universe, or He WAS the Big Bang which makes Him more of a Creator, and less of a God, because, well, You don't really picture God as biggest explosion in history of the known cosmos, do You?

well you can have opinions in any way when it comes to creation, the big bang is the scientific idea, and genesis stories are more divine ideas, but it depends how far you go with it, some could believe god made the big bang, some could argue, if there was nothing, how could the big bang have been made etc.
there really doesn't have to be a logical idea on it, seeing as it happened 13.75 billion years ago, long before life of any sort existed, science is all about learning new things, but something like that will never be known, it's all open to debate and new ideas, and this is true as there are over 4200 religions, so that is about 4200 ideas for how we have came to existence.

You don't really picture God as biggest explosion in history of the known cosmos, do You?

An old man with a long white beard floating around in the clouds seems more friendly than an explosion but it's not a better picture of God since trying to fit the infinite into a finite picture always falls short or leads to absurdities.

A Pantheist would say God is indeed The Big Bang and all that came from it. Here are some concepts of God you probably don't hear about every day. I'll give a link for each but there's vast information available with a quick google.

Pantheism - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/

Deism - http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm

Panentheism - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/

I sincerely apologize for what's to follow, but it really is a good question regarding pantheism:
'is God in everybody's asses then?' Ricky Gervais (obviously).