Correct me if im wrong but isn't the whole catholic religion based on faith and that you have to believe in god without proof of his existance? That's what faith is all about. Therefore proving his is existance would disprove the religion, making the religion false. Bit of a catch 22 hey?

Just something i thought i'd bring up. What is the go with christian people saying god made the whole big bang thing? Doesn't the bible say that god created the universe in seven days, not in some explosion? You guys contradict yourselves all the time. I dont claim to hold all the answers but why does everyone seem hell bent on proving how everything started? Knowing how it all happened isn't going to make your coffee taste any better in the morning.i think we should focus more on where we are going and if we will actually make it there.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

Correct me if im wrong but isn't the whole catholic religion based on faith and that you have to believe in god without proof of his existance? That's what faith is all about. Therefore proving his is existance would disprove the religion, making the religion false. Bit of a catch 22 hey?

No. "Proving" Gods existence would be a vindication of faith.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

Just something i thought i'd bring up. What is the go with christian people saying god made the whole big bang thing? Doesn't the bible say that god created the universe in seven days, not in some explosion? You guys contradict yourselves all the time. I dont claim to hold all the answers but why does everyone seem hell bent on proving how everything started? Knowing how it all happened isn't going to make your coffee taste any better in the morning.i think we should focus more on where we are going and if we will actually make it there.

Because it's one of Catholicisms weakest points, hence it is so heavily attacked and defended. You can't physically prove/disprove Christ was divine, but you can prove a rock is 6,000 or 6,000,000yrs old.

Of course if you don't have God on your side no amount of common sense or reason is going to help you argue with a creationist - so the debate never dies.

Personally I think creation is explained so crudely in Genesis because preaching to a goatherder the universe began in sea of sub atomic particles and radiation isn't really going to get you very far.

Just because your a Christian doesn't mean you have to think like a goatherder. Though plenty still do, like you said.



[This message has been edited by Slave of the Beast (edited 05-27-2005).]

Why do you say catholic

What does christ being divine or not got to do with the big bang theory? you just kinda rabbeled on about your own shit that had nothing to do with my point.

P.S. you can prove how old a rock is with carbon dating.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

What does christ being divine or not got to do with the big bang theory? you just kinda rabbeled on about your own shit that had nothing to do with my point.

P.S. you can prove how old a rock is with carbon dating.

What he was saying it that the Christian doctrine and faith, accept Jesus as a literal 'figure', and that He died a literal death for the atonement of Sins.

Slave of the Beast was pointing out that it is difficult to argue against Jesus Divinity (in order to attack the Christian belief)...

And most Christian doctrine (not necessarily the leaders or the members-- but the doctrine) takes the creation account in Genesis as a real, literal event in history and that it happened about 6000 years ago.

Slave of the Beast was basically saying that this is a much weaker point in which to attack and ultimately disprove the Christian religion.

You see, Christians believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God, Inspired to the men whom God chose to write it. And that it is the truth. So if someone were to try to disprove it, they would want to disprove it from the foundation... because if there is no literal Adam and Eve, then there is no literal Original Sin, so then there would be no need for a literal Saviour.

Now, back to your question: "Correct me if im wrong but isn't the whole catholic religion based on faith and that you have to believe in god without proof of his existance? That's what faith is all about. Therefore proving his is existance would disprove the religion, making the religion false. Bit of a catch 22 hey?"

The apologetics (proving the Faith and thus proving God) is not for the sake of the believers, but really in defense of the Faith in order to allow non-believers to come to Faith...

in other words, (speaking as if i did not believe) "the bible tells me i have sin and am cursed to Hell but belief in Jesus can save me from damnation... but why should i believe in sin and Jesus when the bible also says that God made everything about 6000 years ago but Science (with a big 'S') "proves" that the Big Bang created about 15 billion years ago."

The apologetics (in this case, of Genenis) is a defense of the Faith, not a desire to prove God's existance.

BTW, a rock can not be dated using carbon dating. Carbon dating is for dating things that used to be alive.

Carbon dating is a FORM of radiometric dating. And radiometric dating does have flaws. ... ok, so that your thread does not get hijacked, i'll change that to possible flaws.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

Just something i thought i'd bring up. What is the go with christian people saying god made the whole big bang thing? Doesn't the bible say that god created the universe in seven days, not in some explosion? You guys contradict yourselves all the time..

You are exactly right. That is a contadiction.

That contradiction stems from trying to make sense of the Faith compared with the teaching of evolution and billions of years.

It is called 'compromise'. And the Roman Catholic Church basically Blessed compromise, by agreeing that it "maybe God did use the big bang and evolution to create".

It is worth noting that the pope believes you can prove there is a god. Not necessarily a good, perfect, or even one god, but that there is a God. The Catholic Church absolutely loves science, and, in fact, employs lots of scientists.

The Catholic Church has never state anything about the creation of the universe except that God made it. How God made it the Catholic Church could care less. If ou wish to be a (7-day)creationist, fine, but ima call you dumbass.

Why a creationist can never have a good God:

Creationists believe the world was made in 6 days. We have clear fossil evidence, carbon dating, etc. that shows the world wasn't not made in no 6 days. (Triple negative so it's all good.) The only way to reconcile this is if God "planted" all that evidence. God has tricked humanity, therefore he can't be good.

There is no compromise because the Catholic Church has never changed anything, just added and explained.

THE BIG BANG IS A THEORY!

A good one, but still a theory, and any good scientist recognizes that. There are flaws with it and you'd know that if you just tried Google.



And the 7-Day thing in Genisis. Who says we should use "day" to mean 24 hours. Why not just a period of time. You guys read into stuff too little while knowing too little.

You have been pwned by PhoenixFire.

[This message has been edited by xXPhoenixFireXx (edited 05-27-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by xXPhoenixFireXx:

And the 7-Day thing in Genisis. Who says we should use "day" to mean 24 hours. Why not just a period of time. You guys read into stuff too little while knowing too little.

You have been pwned by PhoenixFire.

There are a ton of holes in your post, but right now, i'm going to only respond to this one.

Reading into Genesis "too little while knowing too little".

Let's do this with some questions...

What language is Genesis written in?

What is the word for 'day' in that language and what are the meanings of that word?

In the context of the original language, what is being conveyed with the word 'day'?

If you subscribe to the understanding that it is not conveying 6 literal creation days, where do you fit billions of years?.. Before? During? After?

Also, if you subscribe to the belief that God exists, but created through billions of years, how could there be death, disease and destruction prior to the Fall of Adam into sin? Before you answer, consider that the bible (God's Word) says that death came into the world because of Sin.

Oh ya, many church leaders.. including some Catholic Popes, have compromised.. in some cases it was a compromise for the sake of keeping the congregation; in other cases, it was a way of keeping "egg off their faces".. meaning that they had went against some of scientific findings and proven wrong... which, in away, the holding on to congregation is really a reaction to the 'egg on face'.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

What does christ being divine or not got to do with the big bang theory? you just kinda rabbeled on about your own shit that had nothing to do with my point.

Proof that reading and comprehension aren't the same thing.

quote:Originally posted by matt_from_oz:

P.S. you can prove how old a rock is with carbon dating.

Pay more attention in science classes. Cretin.

xtreem, tsk, tsk tsk, asking questions while giving no answers. First off, do you know the original meaning? You just assume I'm wrong, because I can't be right because I'm a Catholic. Whatever.

quote:The core of the debate centers on the interpretation of the word day. "Yom" is the Hebrew word translated as "day" in Genesis 1. If you check any lexicon, you will see that this word has many PROPER meanings including, a day = 24 hours, daytime, age, forever and eternity. These various translations are found throughout the Old Testament. "Ereb," translated as "evening," also means night, sunset or ending of a day. "Boqer," translated as "morning," also means sunrise, dawning or beginning of a day. Creationists who hold to the "day-age theory," see these variations as the proper interpretation.



Bitch.

There was no death, destruction, whatnot of any creature with an immortal soul before Adam and Eve, because Adam and Eve were the first to have immortal souls. Catholics define death as separation of the soul from the body. Can't separate a soul if you didn't start off with one.

you have been puddlefied by the hammer of logic.

And on the Catholic church's compromise, give me an example. It better be a good one because I will destroy any crap that you give me.

If you think there were a ton of holes in my post, I think you should point them out. Try me, I like challenges.

And you can prove how old a rock is with carbon dating if there is some organic compuund inside the rock. You probably knew that but, I doubt the original poster knew that, but I thought I'd point it out.

xXPhoenixFireXx, part of the reason that i started with just this part of your post, was the length it will take just to cover this little bit. The other reason is that, since all the rest of the holes really stem from an understanding of the begining, we should work on the foundation first.

Oh, and BTW, i am not saying that you are wrong because you are Catholic. It was not meant derogatory to you (although i do have some problems with some Catholic doctrine and understanding.. but we can worry about that some other time)

Let's do this with some questions...

What language is Genesis written in?

The reason that i used this question, is that i've come across some people (Jehovah Witnesses, in those cases) that have proclaimed, "that is not what <<NT passage>> says in the Greek" but when the Greek NT is opened up, they have looked at it like it was hieroglyphs or worse.

So this question was just to make sure that you understood that we are looking for the Hebrew word for 'day', and not just the wording in an English translation of the Bible.

What is the word for 'day' in that language and what are the meanings of that word?

Correct, 'yom' is the word for day. Also, you gave some meanings of the word 'yom'. Here is what i have:

[quote]1. The semantic range of yôm

The range of yôm is well known. The word has five meanings:

i. a period of light in a day/night cycle;

ii. a period of 24 hours;

iii. a general or vague concept of time;

iv. a specific point of time; and

v. a period of a year.

By contrast, the English word ‘day’ has fourteen different definitions. There are many biblical occurrences of yôm: it appears a total of 2291 times with 1446 being in the singular (a slight majority, 729, appear with a preposition), and 845 in the plural (only 213 appear in a prepositional phrase).[quote]

So it seems like there is a bit of a problem with just the definition, determining the meaning to be used. So then, i think, we have to look at the context in order to decide which meaning of the word best fits.

As you pointed out, it is used along with 'evening'-- 'ereb' and 'morning'-- 'boqer'. It is also used (denoted) with an ordinal (number) i.e. "it was evening and morning, day (1,2,3..6,7).

Now why would the combination of "evening, morning, day + ordinal" be used to convey anyother meaning other than a solar day (and because of consecutive ordinals, a literal 'week')?

Another thing to concider, is at the end of the Creation week, in Gen 2:1-3;



Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

God again used 'yom' and the ordinal '7' (rather 7th). If God had intended us to understand 'yom' as anything other than a normal solar day-- about 24 hours, that would make the sabbath day not make sense either.

To illustrate, try plugging in each of those 5 meanings of 'yom' into Gen 2:1-3... only the first two fit (day/night cycle and 24 hour period).

Also, Jesus had said that the Sabboth was made for man, not for God. I know we look at it as being for God, because that is when we specifically go to worship God, but i think what Jesus was saying, is that God has no need for rest or resting.

OK, for the next part of my reply, i'm going to switch to your post.

You should know that I absolutely despise answeringgenesis.org. There are almost as many arguments for creationists as there are against them. Ex: http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis.html I'm sure we could spen days arguing about it, but it IS open to interpretation.

Also I should mention that I'm absolutely elated that there's someone else of intelligence in this forum. W00t!

[This message has been edited by xXPhoenixFireXx (edited 05-30-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by xXPhoenixFireXx:

You should know that I absolutely despise answeringgenesis.org. There are almost as many arguments for creationists as there are against them. Ex: http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis.html I'm sure we could spen days arguing about it, but it IS open to interpretation.

Also I should mention that I'm absolutely elated that there's someone else of intelligence in this forum. W00t!



OK, as is normal, i got sidetracked... the other response is sitting in an open browser window, about 1/4 (more or less) done.

I just happened to check totse before bed and i'm gonna try to make a few quick points concerning the link you provided.

quote:On the third day, God formed the land out of the seas. There is no time frame given for the formation of the land and seas. Some time after the land was formed, God created the plants:

Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the earth"; and it was so. (Genesis 1:11)

And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:12)

The text clearly states that the earth "sprouted" the plants (the Hebrew word deshe, Strong's #H1877, usually refers to grasses). The Hebrew word dasha, (Strong's #H1876) indicates that the plants grew from either seeds or small seedlings in order to have "sprouted." In addition, these plants produced seeds. The Hebrew word here is zera (Strong's #H2233), which is most often translated "descendants." This makes matters very difficult for the 24-hour interpretation. Not only do the plants sprout and grow to maturity, but produce seed or descendants. There are no plants capable of doing this within a 24-hour period of time. Things actually get worse for this interpretation. Genesis 1:12 clearly states that God allowed the earth to bring forth trees that bore fruit. The process by which the earth brings forth trees to the point of bearing fruit takes several years, at minimum. God did not create the trees already bearing fruit. The text states clearly that He allowed the earth to accomplish the process of fruit bearing through natural means. Because the process of the third day requires a minimum period of time of more than 24 hours, the Genesis text for the third day clearly falsifies the interpretation that the days of Genesis one are 24-hour periods of time.

According to Genesis (and your link), this is what happened on day 3. On day 4, God made the lights in the heaven (stars, planets).

If the days in Genesis, specifically day 3 (when the plants were made) were long periods of time, is it possible that they would survive very long, without animals (which were created on days(long ages?) 5 and 6) that exhale oxygen? Or without the "greater light to rule the day" (sun?) , if day 3 is an undetermined length of time?...

... the answer is, yes, this could happen because God could make it happen but this same arguement could be used against what the author of the link states... namely quote: There are no plants capable of doing this within a 24-hour period of time. Things actually get worse for this interpretation. Genesis 1:12 clearly states that God allowed the earth to bring forth trees that bore fruit. The process by which the earth brings forth trees to the point of bearing fruit takes several years, at minimum.

Genesis explains the account of Creation in two ways. So far, we have been looking at the "big picture" account; the overview. The second is a more detailed, maybe even 'poetic' view. But the link author gives the impression of combining them, even though the text clearly shows a "shifting of gears".

But that's alright, altleast he/she is going by scripture... anyway, the link is referencing Genesis 2:21-22, to prove the point that the 6th day was longer than an ordinary day. Then God brought all the birds, cattle and wild animals to Adam to name. God put Adam to sleep, took a part of him and formed Eve (Genesis 2:21-22). Adam's response to Eve's creation was "at last," indicating that he thought the day was very long indeed.

Sure, i suppose Adam could have meant that the day was long. But when we work our butt off, and at the end of the day we say. "wow, what a long day", does that mean that the day was more than 24 hours? No, it means we worked hard and are tired. Couldnt Adam have felt that way? Even though he had a "God induced 'nap'"? I dont think that is the case though, nor do i think that his statement would mean that it was more than 24 hours. I think it means that Adam knew that God was having him decide on a mate (more importantly, realize that none of the animals were appropriate) while naming them, and when the naming part was done, and God caused him to sleep so He could make Eve, and he woke up, he was happy.

It's getting late, time for bed... night and may God Bless you.

Sidetracked again... i was poking around that site some. Pretty good, actually... well, except for its misunderstanding of Genesis: day = day VS. day = age. LOL http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)

I bookmarked it to check out more later... I AM GOING TO BED THIS TIME LOL

QUOTE Originally posted by xXPhoenixFireXx:

Bitch.

Let's start with this. You said that you are Catholic, which hopefully means that you believe in Jesus as the Christ.

While I dont mind anyone calling me names, please remember that whether in TOTSE or the real world, there are non-believers that notice our actions. And if they know we claim to be Christians, but we dont live by that example, it becomes a huge stumbling block for them. That is not the primary reason to live up to the Christian name, but every reason is very important.

Dont get me wrong, we all make mistakes. All i'm saying to you, is please be more mindful of your actions.

Now, where were we?

There was no death, destruction, whatnot of any creature with an immortal soul before Adam and Eve, because Adam and Eve were the first to have immortal souls. Catholics define death as separation of the soul from the body. Can't separate a soul if you didn't start off with one.

Can you show from the Bible that this is the definition of death?

you have been puddlefied by the hammer of logic.

i have no idea what this is, but it made me smile.

And on the Catholic church's compromise, give me an example. It better be a good one because I will destroy any crap that you give me.

Geocentrism for one. Particles-to-people evolution for another. And, how about the one we are discussing, day-age?

If you think there were a ton of holes in my post, I think you should point them out. Try me, I like challenges.

we will, patients.

And you can prove how old a rock is with carbon dating if there is some organic compuund inside the rock. You probably knew that but, I doubt the original poster knew that, but I thought I'd point it out. /QUOTE

Even if this were semi-true, C-14 is only good for about 50,000 years (not that i believe that the earth has been around that long).

Alright, no more name calling. I think namecalling's just fine. But I won't do it any more. http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

And I'm a Catholic. We don't just rely on the bible, but also Sacred Tradition.

However, bible quotes are always good, so James 2:26 "For just as a body without a soul is dead, so also faith without works is dead."

As for the Church's compromise, I don't believe that the church has ever explictly considered geocentricism, or (7-day) creationism as articles of faith. Of course Catholics must believe that God created the universe.

Granted, a majority of the chuch believed in geocentricism, but so did much of the world. I don't believe the Church can be wrong, but the people that make it up can be.

I suppose that I should rephrase stated to declared. So I suppose the Church can compromise. With regard to actual doctrine, it hasn't changed anything.

C-14 dating IS semi-true. I'ts used a lot to date relatively new sedimentary rocks.

Although C-14 dating only goes back 50,000 max, Potassium-Argon dating can date the oldest igneous rocks that have been discovered to date. I believe the oldest rock dated this way in North America was some 3.5 billion years old.

And I can be patient, I need sleep too. Not.



[This message has been edited by xXPhoenixFireXx (edited 05-31-2005).]

its funny coz that guy posted musings and got flooded by pro-christianity msgs, which then turned into an argument

u really from australia?

Who's from Austrailia. I'm from the USA. Please note that my ravings are Pro-Catholocism.