Re: Observe the trend

On 16/03/2025 4:11 pm, Martin Harran wrote:

On Sat, 15 Mar 2025 11:03:06 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
 

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

On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:13:29 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 14/03/2025 6:52 pm, Martin Harran wrote:

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[snip for focus]
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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.

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If anyone is guilty of a lack of honesty here, it is you and your
continuous evasion.
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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.

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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?'"
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My appropriately general response was to your general question.
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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.
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And ironically, for the record, I'm not a biblical literalist in the
sense that I assume you mean,

 So why quote from Genesis without offering any interpretation?
 

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 never really 'got' this YEC vs OEC thing. If you accept that the
days in Genesis are not literally 24 hour days, why stop there, why
take that part as figurative but insist that the rest of it should be
read literally? Whilst I totally reject the YEC approach, I recognise
that at least they are consistent in how  they read the Bible.

Yes, that's a valid question. In fact, the YEC position often refers to it as slippery slope into a non-literal reading of the whole Bible. In practice this doesn't follow, but I get the concern.
Perhaps it's not a question of a literal vs non-literal approach to the Bible generally, but a question of which literary genre to categorise the early chapters of Genesis as.

 

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.

 You really should read Francis Collins book 'The Language of God'; he
had a not dissimilar experience in front of a frozen waterfall which
led to his final step to becoming a Christian. (The book is a bit
dated now but still a good read.)

I'll look for it.

 

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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,

 Short version of a long story - up to about 20 years ago, I knew
nothing whatsoever about evolution and related areas until someone
challenged me about my lifelong religious beliefs being "God of the
Gaps" - the first time I heard that expression. I decided that I
needed to dig into this and started reading. When studying something
new, I go for as wide a range of sources as I can, so in this area I
have read extensively from people such Dawkins and Coyne on both their
scientific (both brilliant) and anti-religion (both awful) writings
and from IDers like Meyer and Behe as well as wide range of websites
from both sides of the religion vs science debate.. Of particular
interest to me were religious believers who have major scientific
credentials - people like Ken Miller, Francis Collins and John
Polkinghorne.
 That last group confirmed my own belief that science and religious
belief are total compatible but I found something missing from them;
they seemed to seek to avoid conflict by putting science and religion
into very separate categories, like Gould with his non-overlapping
magisteria. It seemed to me that that was falling short, that they do
tell us separate stories and I felt that we should be able to get a
more complete picture based on what they collectively tell us. Then I
found Teilhard de Chardin and I was taken with the way he was able to
combine his scientific knowledge and his theological knowledge to get
that more complete picture.

Thanks for sharing. I agree with reading widely - Dawkins is generally a good read, but as you say with anti-religion, awful. And his reductionist gene-centric model is now looking simplistic I think.
This is such a complex topic. We all find different paths and positions. Someone described Gould's NOMA as a disingenuous "gag order" on religion, which I agree with.
I know that I have to force myself to really consider material from opposing viewpoints, but I do, e.g. recently I've been listening to Zak Hancock, who seems credible. https://www.youtube.com/@talkpopgen

 

what
they mean for you, and even your uncertainties. I'm willing to do the same.

 I can't see that being fruitful if you are going to continue to ignore
awkward questions that I ask.
 

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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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