cmoehle

Feb 16 2006, 03:45 PM

Alan "My problem is that people who find stuff like this diffcult to believe then say the creation story is a myth or an allegory."

But that is what myth and allegory do, explain the unexplainable. "Why? because he cannot explain everything to us, we would not understand with our limited experience. He said he "spoke" the world into exsistance. How does this work? I don't know, and cannot explain it, but by Faith, I believe it." That's the purpose of myth and allegory, that is what they are.

And metaphor. For example, God "explaining", he "spoke". Or God "thinks".


"It is not written like a myth or an allegory, it is written as history."

Huh? Then explain two Genesis "histories". Two histories would tell different stories and would thus have different meanings. Two myths could easily have the same meaning.


"People want things both ways, they want to believe in God, but parts of the bible are too unbelievable to them, so they dismiss them as myth or allegory."

Isn't it you who wants it both ways and dismiss myth?

No one here has said anything about belief till now. Do you dismiss mainstream belief? Majority belief? And that just among Christians.


"The problem with doing this is, what then exactly then is Christianity? For me, its simple. Christianity is defined in the bible. What God thinks about things is defined by the bible. Creation is documented in the bible. What is sin and what isn't sin is defined by the bible."

So too if read as myth, as stories, as parables, as allegories.

The problem with literal readings is reconciling two Genesis stories just to start off with.

You also will have a devil of a time reconciling that with the fact words are symbols, not the things they reference.

And then there's ambiguity.

Literal reading loses a lot of meaning.


"If you don't take the literal parts of the bible as literal and the allegoracle parts are allegory, then what is true about God and what isn't? Denominations then take it upon themselves to define what Chistianity is to them, and then the slippery slope appears, and they end up virually believing in nothing. When someone does something evil..."

Ah, yes, Christianity's Achilles Heal. In a schismatic religion like Christianity concerned as it is with personal salvation, that is what you are ultimately left with, individual interpretation.



"This is why some people can say Christianity justified Hitler, because they don't see the bible as being the source of what Christianity is. The bible most certainly condems the acts of Hitler, and if he believed that the bible was the word of God, he could not have used Christianity to justify what he did."

"Christianity justified Hitler"? That is something you came up with, no one else said it. Convenient straw man for the rest of your argument?

What was said back then was Hitler was a part of Christianity. Christianity has a long history of bigotry and hatred towards Jews.


Now what does this have to do with evolution?

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    A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.
    A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.
    A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
    A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth” (Leon Wolff).

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"Christianity justified Hitler"? That is something you came up with, no one else said it. Convenient straw man for the rest of your argument?

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Now what does this have to do with evolution?

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I am pointing out that abiogenesis is in direct conflict with creation, somthing that I think I have proven. I don't see how anyone could believe that God created the Heavens and the earth AND in abiogenesis at the same time.

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"But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, [Luke 20:37; Rom 11:2] in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ' [Ex 3:6] I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, and the God of Jacob'?

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"But Abraham said, 'They have [Luke 4:17; John 5:45-47; Acts 15:21] Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'

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Chris

Could you explain what you say are "two histories?" You keep saying that but I can't find the discrepancy.

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...1. The Greek term (logos), which both the KJV and NIV render as “words,” can sometimes properly be translated that way. But like the situation above regarding the term , there are many contexts where it is best translated otherwise.

2. The primary meaning of logos is not “word” in a grammatical sense—such as “croak,” “frog,” or “slimy”—but a set of ideas that are intended to be communicated.

3. From its basic definition and New Testament usage, in this passage logos means “truths,” “content,” or “propositions,” not mere “isolated dictionary entries found in the original text.” (See, for example, the following passages where logos is found: Mt. 19:22; Mk.  5:36; Lk. 1:29; Jn. 2:22; Acts 8:4; Acts 10:29; 2 Pet. 1:19; Gal. 5:14; 1  Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 4:15; Rev. 1:2; cf. also Heb. 4:12; Jn. 1:1,14)....