Creationsim vs. Science

[Crimson Raccoon]

promised_child

i meant the classical age.... to many ages..... when i said Rome, i meant the Vatican. i wasn't taught from that book, and my WH class actually dealt very little with the cause of the Dark Ages, but it is recorded historical fact that people who studied the sciences were often dubbed witches or heretics by the clergy. even after the Dark Ages, the churches still view science with mistrust, but the Bible is full of science. you cant have one without the other, whether or not we acknowledge it on either side. that was my point...

Ah yes, the Classical Age, heehee.

You wouldn't have been taught from that book, it isn't used for teaching; it was just popular in the 1800's and did a lot to spread the myths of the Church being against science. And many of those myths still persist today, because we can all see that many students are still taught that in the middle ages, they thought the world was flat.

It also really is a myth that the church was against science during the Middle Ages. The division between science and religion did not begin until the late 1800's, in part due to the rise of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Most of the greatest scientists of all time were devout Christians. I don't know of any scientists ever being dubbed as witches, but if you can easily find an example, I'd be interested in researching it because the science/religion relationship is an area of particular interest to me.

Indeed the Bible has some science in it, and science has some theology in it. Some prominent scientists, such as Sir Isaac Newton, considered their scientific study to be religious in nature, because the more you know about Creation, the more you know about the Creator. There really is no reason today for the perceived division between science and religion, and the first step to overcoming that division is understanding that is a recent occurrence, not a historical one.  

[OneWithDunamis]

But in Genesis it does say that the sun came to be a "day" after vegetation. To me this is a pretty significant point in arguing for a literal 6 day creation.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

OneWithDunamis

But in Genesis it does say that the sun came to be a "day" after vegetation. To me this is a pretty significant point in arguing for a literal 6 day creation.

Well, yeah, it uses the word day for each of the 7 periods; the question is whether that is literal or whether it's symbolic. The context certainly allows for a literal interpretation; it doesn't come out and say, "this is just symbolic." But, it also allows for a symbolic interpretation; there is at least a few pieces of evidence in the context that it is only symbolic. Since good science also seems to support that the universe developed over a longer period of time, I am beginning to lean more towards the day-age theory, and the more I learn about that interpretation the more it does seem to be Biblically based and not just a response to science.

Some of the evidence that suggests the days of creation aren't literal 24-hour days are the creation of the Sun and the use of the word "day" in Genesis 2:4.

The sun was not created until the fourth day. Hebrews measured days from sunset to sunset, in the Old Testament times and even all the way up to Jesus' day. That's why they said he was dead for 3 days, when really it was only about a day and a half (Friday night to Sunday morning).

Because Jesus died Friday before sunset, was dead all day Saturday, and rose again after sunrise on Sunday, that counts as three days for them, even though for us that would only be about 36 hours. The Hebrew measurement of days is based on the Sun, not on a number of hours; and since the Sun and other stars weren't even created until the fourth day, this suggests that the days could be symbolic.

Another piece of evidence is, that after the 7 day creation account has been described, it seems to refer to the entire process as only one day. Genesis 2:4 says, "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." So that would seem to be an example of the word "day" being used as a general term for a period of time.

There is other evidence within the text that inclines it toward being interpreted as a poetical, symbolic description of God's creation. It exhibits a few of the characteristics of Hebrew poetry, such as parallelism. Without getting into the details of Hebrew poetry, you can see by just reading Genesis chapter 1, that it is clearly strikingly poetical. The rest of Genesis does not have this poetic feel or character to it, which makes this first chapter unique. Hebrew poetry uses words symbolically, as does most cultures' poetry.

Anyway, I'm not trying to shake anyone's beliefs, I only want to present some of the ideas behind day-age theory.  

[OneWithDunamis]

That's one good explanation smile Guess I'll keep finding out more before I settle on any one.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

promised_child

Crimson Raccoon

promised_child

before the "dark ages" was the "age of enlightenment" we actually regressed technologically and in knowledge during the Dark Ages. we as a planet should be much further advanced. but since Rome wanted complete control, and knowledge is power, science and math became heretic. so it isn't really surprising that in 400 AD there were advanced theories about the planet and life therefore on it. this is not a slight on the Roman Catholic church, it is merely fact that, even in the Vatican, corrupt politicians are detrimental to society as a whole. Columbus was not the first to say that the earth was round. Plato said it centuries before, and was also the one to say that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. maybe we should look backwards first then see what we can come up with scientifically....

just sayin

Well, the period called the Age of Enlightenment was actually after the dark ages, it was around the 1700's. It's true that our technology would be a lot more advanced today if we had continued developing steadily since Rome. I'm not sure the reason we fell into the dark ages was because of Rome being too controlling, actually Rome was the most technologically advanced society in the world, and was only matched in recent centuries. I think it was probably more the collapse of the Roman Empire that contributed to the dark ages, because so many societies were then without government and had to start from scratch. There was also plague and climate issues that persisted for centuries, altogether making it a difficult time to live and develop society.

The Roman Catholic church did have serious corruptions throughout the period of the Middle Ages, and actually the Protestant Reformation, along with capitalism, is credited quite a bit with bringing Western society out of the "dark" intellectual age. The climate and plague issues had also improved before these changes happened. But I'm not sure if the Roman Catholic church can take too much blame for the dark ages, either, since without it intellectualism would probably have died out completely. And we would have lost all the ancient writings and histories; they were the ones that preserved them.


I'm glad you brought up Columbus, because that is a common historical myth. Most people today believe that Columbus thought the world was round when everyone else believed it was flat. This is actually false, though it is still commonly taught in grade-schools today. In Columbus's day, everyone knew the world was round. People hadn't thought it was flat since the time of the ancient Greeks.

The debate that Columbus got into when he tried to get support for his travels, was over the size of the earth, not whether it was round. He thought he could sail around the world, but he had trouble convincing anyone that it was possible, because everyone thought the world was too large to make that journey. In fact, they were right, and Columbus was wrong. The world was much larger than Columbus thought, but he got lucky because there was an extra two continents in the middle. Remember that when he landed in the Americas, he thought he was in India (which is why he called the natives Indians), and he was way off from reality.

But there was no debate over the earth being round or flat; everyone knew it was round. So I'm glad you brought it up, promised_child, because probably most people in this forum didn't know this was only a myth. It's no one's fault, we've just been taught wrong.

The origin of this myth can mostly be traced to a single man, John Draper, who wrote a popular book called A History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. The book is complete anti-Church propaganda, made to convince people that the church was responsible for almost every problem the human race has faced since the beginning of the Middle Ages. He wrote that the Roman Catholic church was opposed to the idea of a round earth, and that it tried to keep everyone in ignorance. He made it seem like Science was considered heretical.

These, and the other accusations he wrote, are completely false and no historian today supports anything he wrote. However, a lot of his stories remain commonly believed today because it makes good Hollywood material. Columbus is always portrayed in movies and television as fighting for what he believed in against the ignorant people in power over him. So people, including grade school teachers, believe what they see on TV and pass it on to their students.

i meant the classical age.... to many ages..... when i said Rome, i meant the Vatican. i wasn't taught from that book, and my WH class actually dealt very little with the cause of the Dark Ages, but it is recorded historical fact that people who studied the sciences were often dubbed witches or heretics by the clergy. even after the Dark Ages, the churches still view science with mistrust, but the Bible is full of science. you cant have one without the other, whether or not we acknowledge it on either side. that was my point...

I just wanted to follow up, I did some research into the matter and I've found that no scientists were ever put to death because of their scientific beliefs, nor was any scientist ever condemned as a heretic or witch because of their science. It's just more myths that were invented to make it seems like science and religion are polar opposites and can't get along; but with research the myths fade away. It's too bad that some of these myths still sometimes get taught in schools today; but mostly people get the impression that it's "recorded historical fact" just from it being spread through the media.

Science and Christianity really do get along quite well; after all, out of all the places modern science could have emerged, it only did so in Christian Europe. History shows that Christianity, rather than inhibiting science, actually encouraged and developed it into its modern form.