Re: Observe the trend

On 15/03/2025 4:30 am, Martin Harran wrote:

On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:13:29 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 14/03/2025 6:52 pm, Martin Harran wrote:

 [snip for focus]
 

Name one mainstream denomination that teaches that 'speaking into
life' should be taken literally and evolution dismissed.

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As I've said before, members of various denominations subscribe to a
range of interpretations of the biblical account, ALL of which involve
God creating, i.e. "speaking into existence":

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Do any of the mainstream denominations take "speaking into existence"
literally as you do?
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1. TE (front-loaded) God speaks into initial conditions
2. TE (Martin Harran) God speaks ???
3. TE (guided) God speaks into being gradually
4. Progressive Creation God speaks into being progressively
5. OEC/YEC/ID God speaks into being directly/other
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"And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds
fly above the earth across the vault of the sky." So God created the
great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water
teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every
winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good."
(Genesis 1:20-21)

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So you are a Bible literalist. I'm glad we got that much clarified.

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How did you get "Bible literalist" from my list of mostly non-literal
interpretations of Genesis 1?

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Talking about God speaking things into life and quoting Genesis to
back it up is a pretty strong clue.

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The measure of literalism is in the *interpretation* of the text of
Genesis, not the quoting of it. Your response indicates that you know
this, but attempted to slide past it to your real agenda, at the expense
of correctness and honesty.

 If anyone is guilty of a lack of honesty here, it is you and your
continuous evasion.
 You made no attempt to provide any interpretation of the Bible passage
you quoted. You gave a list if the ways you think that *other people*
might interpret Genesis but none of those qualify as literal - they
can't because interpretation is the opposite of literal - and you
don't even give any indication which of them (if any) applies to
yourself. I have asked you several times whether you think humans have
evolved or were created as a stand-alone species and you have made no
attempt to answer. I've asked you if you accept your "intelligent
designer" has created some really bad things, some really inefficient
things and some precarious things. Again, you have made no attempt to
answer. Even in your response to my post above about you being a Bible
literalist, it's notable that you neither admit nor deny my claim, you
just whine about me making it.

The conversation has not been about my personal position. Most recently it was in relation to your question: 'Do any of the mainstream denominations take "speaking into existence" literally as you do?'"
My appropriately general response was to your general question.
You then misapplied my response, making a logically fallacious leap to press your agenda, which is (it seems) to accuse me of being a biblical literalist, which you have assumed to be the case. Your doing this, and your unwillingness to admit as much, damages trust and derails discussion.
And ironically, for the record, I'm not a biblical literalist in the sense that I assume you mean, i.e. holding to a YEC interpretation of Genesis? I believe the Bible to be the infallible word of God. But the world and universe appear to me to be older than 10,000 years. I've stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and thought it difficult to conceive of a natural process that could carve it out in only thousands of years.
Look, we can continue an unedifying slanging contest (which I've admittedly contributed to), or we can seek to understand each other. For example, while I'm unconvinced of your views related to say Teilhard de Chardin, I am interested to know how you arrived at that position, what they mean for you, and even your uncertainties. I'm willing to do the same.

 

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I note you don't deny it.
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and something I and many scientists
who are Christians believe.
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The timescale God used (days or millions of years) and the way (deism,
TE, PC, OEC, ID, YEC, other) are of course widely debated.

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