Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Replies such as yours is exactly why I posted above. It is the lack of understanding that evolutionists have regarding the scriptures due to errors in Christian theology. Most Christians receive the scriptures literally where I do not and I lack the problems they have with discussing/debating the subject.
You are only stating a case against a literal interpretation of the scriptures. The scriptures were not all composed decades after the time of Christ. The Torah existed long before Christ. The New testament was written from the time of Christ until decades later so this is a straw man argument on your part.
The Genesis account of creation is not a literal creation account so again, you are stating a case only against literal interpretations of the scriptures.

Peace

How do you re-translate what biblical scholars have already interpreted?

You say Genesis is not a literal account of creation. By whose authority do you make such conclusions?

Fair enough. But do you dispute the fossil record, in which it is clearly shown that life evolves?

I started the same way everyone else would have however, I have always been skeptical of everything I read and study, especially when my understanding must rely on someone else to interpret what is being studied.

When words are translated from one language to another sometimes meanings are lost in the translation. This is a fact. The problems I find in biblical translation are certain word definitions that contradict many passages. Its like scripture is opposed to scripture.

I began studying deeper into the methods of which our bibles have been translated. I found that words were defined and translated according to a theology instead of allowing the words to define our theology. One of the first errors I found was the word Olam (Heb) and Aion (Gk) and its adjuctive Aionios (Gk) were improperly translated as "everlasting', "evermore", "Forever", and "Forever and ever".

The reason I questioned these words was due to many theological issues where Sodom and Gomorrah are said to suffer eternally in a fire with no hope but in Ezekiel we read that Sodom and her sisters (Gomorrah and the cities about them actually had a promise of restoration before Israel is restored. So, after a few years of intense study of scriptural word usages, primarily where words of timelessness are used came to the conclusion that the ancient languages had no one word which could be defined and translated as timelessness. This absolutely eliminated not only the literalness of the fire being spoken of but it endless duration as well.

Believe me, I do not come to my conclusions lightly. I commit years to finding its bottom line truth.

The bottom line is that none of the scriptures (even if it speaks of literal events) should be taken literally. Jesus said "the words I speak are spirit" and many of his followers left him because they were without understanding. Jesus said he spoke in parables to prevent the multitudes from understanding and only gave the interpretation to the 12 he chose. The whole of scripture is one big parable with many subparables within the whole. To take it literally is to miss out on the spiritual significance of it all and you are left with nothing but mess of erroneous theologies and division which is what has lead to there being so many denominations of Christianity. Jesus said to walk in ONE spirit and ONE accord. I do not see this at all within Christianity so how could they possibly have it when enforcing Creationism?

This issue is just one of so many that I just wouldn't know where to start but as the errors are slowly plucked and corrected the whole begins to brighten up and make so much more sense in this light than in the darkness of error and speculation.

Not at all. That is actually a very premature assumption to make. I showed what the scriptures say. I believe what the scriptures actually say, not what some preacher says they say. You see what it says, now if you want to make a statement such as this, please follow it up with some reasoning or logic for why it is you "believe" your statement and why should anyone else follow your assertion?

Peace.

Will you explain ed how the fossil record shows that life evolves.

If you are not familiar with the fossil record and how it clearly shows that evolution occurs by now, after thousands of posts on the topic, you either do not really want to know or you are yanking chains. In short, go whistle up a tree.

Upon what, are you evaluating your own interpretation of the scripture?

Are you interpreting it just so that it makes "sense" to you theologically, or do you have some objective baseline from which you evaluate?

Honestly, I am not concerned with the conclusions of biblical scholars. I have even debated many in my day. A biblical scholar has gone to school at a Christian university and therefore everything they study has the theological blueprint of Christianity and its errors.

I had once applied to get into trinity Christian College and ended up not bothering when I found out just how tight they are when it comes to their theological viewpoints/beliefs. For example the belief of eternal suffering is critical to believe even if you can prove it to be false.

Do you have any links or sources for these events mentioned in the book? I have yet to see these other events (excluding the literal interpretation of the genesis 6 day creation estimating the earth to be 12 thousand years old).

Peace

Hi Spendius,

I understand perfectly what you are saying and for the most part I agree however, it is not fruitful to adopt a theology that is inaccurate over a scriptural truth. It does nothing to further the movement of Creationism or ID. It hinders it at the very least and gives the materialistic movement more mocking ammunition. If the scriptures are silent on the subject of the age of the universe or the earth than why do we continue to argue for a young earth? It is a safer more logical stand to say it is unknown.

Furthermore, I do not think I hurt the design argument in the least, and I say this because since Darwin, no scientific model serves to answer the tough questions faced by the naturalists in regards to the origin of life and all matter and the complexity phenomena. Science has remained silent concerning these issues. Of course they argue with an hypothesis here and another there but none fit the bill and they all know it. ID is the most logical conclusion since the complexity demands a designer.

When we see ancient rock carvings, we do not hypothesize that it is the direct result of wind and water erosion, hence we see the results of intelligence and claim it as such. Likewise so, in the complexity of living organisms. We see the results of intelligence yet it is firmly denied by science as "merely having the appearance of design, but not really designed". I'm sorry but if I look at a square I see a square. I do not conclude that it only has an appearance of a square, but not really a square. That's nonsense. Even Darwin had trouble with this. "I am conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design.". So really, nothing has changed in 130 years, I do not expect them to find an alternative answer than this for the complexity issue.

From the articles I have been reading lately, it appears that ID proponents are on the rise. I am sure that if We have an academic freedom act instituted, a lot more scientists will be voicing their positive endorsements for ID without fear of a career suicide.

Peace.

I asked you for an explanation of how the fossil record shows clearly that life evolves ed. Of course I am yanking chains because I know you haven't a ******* clue how the fossil record shows that life evolves as you claimed.

In fact it shows the opposite. And I am more familiar with the fossil record than most people.

Your baby trick of trying to line up those who don't think the fossil record shows anything like you claimed with a denial of the fossil record ought to be banned from A2K because it insults the intelligence of all its members.

I hope that the education of 50 million American kids is not posited on your telling me to go whistle up a tree. If that sort of argument had any traction we would still be jabbering in the tree tops as you are doing.

As a truth seeker TS do you think there are any positions other than anti-ID, anti-atheism or not caring either way?

Does it not worry you that anti-IDers are jumping on your posts with eager alacrity while being scared witless about taking mine on? The Discovery Institute is the best thing atheists could hope for. So much so that I suspect atheists thought it up in order to set up an easy Aunt Sally so that they could knock it over and pose as intellectuals.

They only want freedom from Christian sexual morality. End of story. Has the three wived Dawkins ever said what we get if we follow him?

Its not re-translating it. The problem with theology today is that believers erroneously believe that the translated bible is inerrant which causes them to continue on as if nothing is wrong never questioning our translated bibles. There are numerous translations out there and some of them translate these particular words without inferring their theologies into the translation. Take the Concordant Publishing concern, Young's literal translation, etc, etc,etc. There are a number of these translations which translate "Olam" (Hebrew) as "Olam" and "Aion" (Gk) as "Aion", and "Aionios" (Gk adjective of Aion) as "Aionios" as to avoid translating them with definitions of timelessness which they are not.

When you say, "How do you re-translate what biblical scholars have already interpreted?", I must also point out that there are many biblical scholars who have not translated it without a theological bias because they have seen the errors. Do you know that since the original 1611 KG bible was printed there have been more than 50,000 errors corrected in subsequent reprints which have all been revised over and over again? That number was from research I did roughly 12 years ago so I am sure the numbers are much higher. Of course, most of them are small errors (relatively speaking) with no impact on understanding however one little comma out of place can change the theology of millions of people so I honestly do not believe there are any small errors.

Peace.

"The text clearly states that the earth "sprouted" the plants (the Hebrew word deshe,5 Strong's #H1877, usually refers to grasses). The Hebrew word dasha,6 (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."
If you wish to see a break down of the day by day process go to http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis.html

As you can see above, there is no way these are literal 24 hour days. So we have a much longer period of time in focus.

Why would I need a "who" to give me authority to interpret the word of God for myself? If I did need a who than it absolutely brings the commands, "seek and ye shall find" and "Seek as for hidden treasure" to none effect and worthless.

Peace.

You ******* wad. You haven't a clue. I broke my rule of not responding to you on threads of this nature. I won't slip again. I was sounding out our new creationist and it is obvious he falls into your camp, because he ignores questions that don't allow him to preach his brand of religion.

You would need to define "evolve". I believe evolution is only provable to a change of variety but not a change in species. I can only see subtle beneficial environmental changes which cause many varieties of the same species and that is as far as I accept as it is observable.

Peace.

The scriptures define the scriptures. Word usage defines a word. It is simple logic.
If in one passage we are told that Sodom and Gomorrah are destined for an eternal torment in a literal place called hell yet, another passage makes a promise of restoration,BEFORE Gods own chosen people to drive His people to jealousy, it is quite obvious that by driving them to jealousy, Sodom is not going to burn forever since that would not make Gods people jealous. So, since we have 2 contrasting passages that contradict each other we have 3 choices, 1: The scriptures contradict and are not worthy of study. 2: God is a liar. 3: There is an error in the translation.

I cannot see any other alternative to this problem. As I mentioned before, it is impossible to translate from one language to another without losing something in translation. This is a human error. The manuscripts are perfect copies that went through tedious painstaking measures in order to preserve the original in the copies. This is not so when translating into another language.

I often hear this "my interpretation" argument but isn't that what we are commanded to do? Rightly divide the word of truth? Seek as for hidden treasure? Isn't it a "MYSTERY" to be solved? Its not my theology that interprets the scriptures. In fact that is how the errors of translation happened in the first place. They were translated according to the theology of those who translated it. I allow the unadulterated scriptures determine my theology and not the other way around.

Peace.

"Does it not worry you that anti-IDers are jumping on your posts with eager alacrity while being scared witless about taking mine on? The Discovery Institute is the best thing atheists could hope for. So much so that I suspect atheists thought it up in order to set up an easy Aunt Sally so that they could knock it over and pose as intellectuals."

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. They can continue on in their materialistic ways. In fact, I see more concern over the interpretation of the scriptures than any attack on ID.

As far as you position, I do not really know since I am new here. I will search out some of your posts,etc to see if I can get an idea.

Peace.