Stephan Anagnostaras wrote:
> In article <364B5C6D.75E14B08 at indiana.edu>, qmorrisREMOVE at indiana.edu wrote:
>> > I just recently started subscribing to this group. It's amazing how,
> > no matter where you go in newsgroup cyberspace, this conversation
> > persists. Will someone go back, read genesis, and tell us WHERE
> > the account of creation PROHIBITS the possibility of evolution?
> >
> > Otherwise, shut up. :)
> >
> > Shaft
>> Basically, it does. The story of Genesis clearly states the abrupt
> appearance of humans in complex form.
But what's the length of a "day" in God's Eternity? How can anyone say
=anything= with respect to such?
And if you check out Peter 2, you'll find the "Rock" upon which Jesus founded
the Church agreeing... (paraphrase) "For a day with God is like a thousand
years, and a thousand years like a day."
If it's good enough for Peter, it's good enough for me... and anyone else who
expects Christ Knew what he was doing when He Chose Peter as the Church's first
Human-Stuff.
> Plus, God created man in his image.
Be-cause I've traced the energy dynamics of our nervous systems all the way up
to Free Will, and have seen, with my own eyes, that our nervous systems, through
which we actualize behavior, are =totally= "in Love" with the flow of energy in
which they're immersed, my view on the "image" in which we were Created derives
in Energy Dynamics. =Don't= get me wrong. I can't See beyond the energy
dynamics, and I do not purport to "know" God... I "just" =Believe=... it's just
that, when I study how Intimate our nervous systems are with the ebb and flow of
the energy all-around-and-permeating them, it's hard not to see that that stuff
is extremely-much-more representative of what we are than is our outward
appearance... contemplate Anthropological diversity, look here, is African,
Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Jewish, Anglo-Saxan, Nordic, Eskimo,
Native American, etc.? And when folks travel, as Jesus said that folks =must=,
so as to bring His Good News to folks everywhere, and one bearing The Word comes
to Love and marry, in Christ, do their Children, somehow, "lose" the Image of
God in which all Humans are Created?
That's "just" too-mean a thing to think in the Light of Christ's Teaching us to
Love our Neighbors... who are =any= folks who Know and Believe. So, we must
look-deeper, and when we do, it's not hard to see just how it is that we are, in
fact, Created in God's Image... God Courses Through Us, animating us... Giving
us Life... everything within us, from the tiny-"whisper" stuff of Life Begun! at
the moment of Conception, to the sweet "thunder" of collective voices Singing
God's Praise, to our final Hope as Life goes our of our bodies in it's Joyous
Rush to Join God... everything within us =Resounds= with God... why not See
what's so Awesomely-Beautiful in all this rather than cast God in our image...
God's the Creator, not us... but can you see that the "in God's image" Stuff
flat-out does =not= require a Human form?
> It doesn't say he created the animals and then hoped that one day millions
> of years later man might turn out in his image. It clearly indicates that
> man was created abruptly in God's image. So this precludes the possibility
> of evolution, at least for man.
We disagree... the energy dynamics which underpin "evolution" have Truth
in-there, and God =is= Truth... Jesus Taught such plain-as-day.
Please, please, understanding how unfamiliar what I write to you must be... and
so did Jesus, for it's exactly that that He addressed in his "new-cloth patches
on old-cloth garments" and "new-wine in new-wineskin" allegories... and
understanding how nervous systems react to that which is unfamiliar, I =Beg= for
your Understanding... Jesus did not Come to us, Teach us, Establish the Chruch,
Suffer for us and =Die= for us only to "require" us to forsake the Gift of our
ability to reason... He Did, in fact, Teach just-the-opposite Stuff. It is =in=
Christ that our Human Stuff is Lifted-Up... and I ache so that 2000 years have
come and gone, and folks are =still= prefering the Darkness to The Light that
Jesus Brought into the world, and Left with us never-endingly.
> The account of Adam and Eve is even more difficult to reconcile, because
> of the appearance of the male sex before the female sex. Plus, in this
> account humans are apparently created BEFORE simpler animals and
> vegetation (this is the opposite order however of the first creation
> story... of course, we know the historical sources of these two stories
> are different). This account is more problematic, but in either case, both
> accounts agree on the abrupt appearance of man in complex form.
Again, what's the length of a "day" in Eternity? In Mathematics, there are
infinities within infinities... and I just can't make God fit into "less than
Mathematics"... and I don't want to... I can only see that God must be
extremely-very-much-more than =anything= I =can= See... and I Dare-Not even
think of trying to "fit" God into anything that I can See... God is More...
that's Why Faith is both Necessary and Difficult... we must =Reach= Up to God,
not "bring God down" to us... Jesus Chose to do such for us... it's not for us
to "do such for" God.
> This aside, I don't think people should make their careers out of testing
> things in the Bible as scientific questions, this is a silly practice.
Have you ever had the Sorrow of working real-hard to prepare a Gift for a Loved
one, only to have the gift go totally-rejected? It's plain-as-day... the Gift of
Reason, is a =Great Gift=... I can only See that, to "put it under a bushel
basket", would give Christ so much more of the Awesome Sorrow that He
Experienced in His so-Total Rejection on Calvary... it's so much so that such is
tantamount to enduringly-Crucifying Jesus, over and over again, on a daily
basis.
Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." And He =Meant= it... Light helps one
See... why have a Light if there's "nothing" to See?
Which brings me to one of my Favorite Things... I don't know the original
dialect the Jesus used, and that's likely to invalidate my interpretation,
because my interpretation depends on nuances of the English translation, but I
=Love= the the connotation implicit in Jesus's saying, "[...] My burden is
light." I carry the thought in-me... Jesus is saying to me, "Yes, it's hard to
accept the Light I've Given to folks, but Accept it, and =See=." His "burden" is
the making-of-it-possible to =See=... which leads right back to the conventional
connotation... being able to See makes the "burden" so weight-less, it fairly
Lifts one Up.
But to experience such, we have to make Use of God's Gift of Reason, don't we?
> Any particular Bible has been translated too many times to have this level
> of technical accuracy and the creation stories (of which there are two)
> have independent sources and disagree on some key issues, relevant to the
> debate, so what is the point?
Speaking =strictly= for myself, the point is, I don't want to reject God's Gift
of Reason, nor His (Jesus's) Gift of Light.
If you've read all this, Thank You for hearing me out.
Cheers, Stephan, ken (gotta "sign" it, so folks can hold me to it... K. P.
Collins)