[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by elf

I’m not the most eloquent person in the world so bear with me if you please . . .

I'm far from eloquent myself, so join the club!

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why couldn’t it be that God did make people from primordial ooze? Did He carve Adam out of rock or sculpt him from clay? It makes more sense to me that a higher power would have prompted it to grow with a mere thought or will to make it so.

Well, there are lots of different "theories" out there, but I'm one of those silly literalists, meaning I believe God did it the way he said he did it in Genesis. That makes the earth about 6,000 years old, all of creation formed in 6 literal 24 hour days, it makes the earth formed before the sun, and it makes the evolutionist's idea that man showed up on the scene after millions of years of death and carnage completely wrong, because there was no death before Adam ate the apple.

Some other people (Hugh Ross and his intelligence design folks) try to fit millions of years of history into the bible, but the language and grammer of the old testament are pretty clear that day means day, not undetermined period of time.

Does God have hands? Why would he? ‘In his own form’, so it says . . . but then, his own form would have needed air and food to survive just as we do. If He doesn’t need it, then why do we breathe and eat? Is it ‘in his own form, only not as spiffy?’

It says it is so in the bible, and therefore that’s the way it is. Would it be too much of a stretch that pehaps the bible had been simplified to understandable terms for the mindset of the peoples thousands of years ago?

Actually, if you take the bible literally, and Man has been around as long as everything else, that means that all of the technology and knowledge known to the egyptians and babylonians and alexandrians came handed down from Noah and his 3 sons. Remember how long people lived in the bible? 900 + years is a long time to learn stuff and memorize it and hand it down to your kids (and their kids and their kids...) God wouldn't need to simplify anything.

Time was (within the last couple thousand years) when people could read and believed the book as it was written. If you read the book as literal, without ANY presuppositions or assumptions, you would have absolutely NO clue from the text about millions of years. It's just NOT there. Why are you trying to fit man's fallible ideas into an infallible book and then calling the book wrong?? Read it as it's written.

Just like schoolbooks are simplified to make it so that children can grasp the concepts, and then move on to make their own decisions and understand more deeply.<b> School is not the end-all be-all of education, and seeing as the bible is a tool of religious education, isn't there room for your own questions or conclusions? </b>Or do you have to read it and accept it just as it is worded (translated? How many times? To mean how many different things?) and not question?

If you're an omnipotent God, and this is your rule book, and your primary basis of communicating your wants and requirements to your believers, aren't you going to make sure it's right? I don't know what kind of diety you may worship (if any), but the one I believe in can make sure the books and verses he wants in the book stay in the book.

Which brings me to another point: The Creator I believe in can do it right the first time, but simply willing something into existance, without needing millions of years and death and destruction to do it. Another reason I have a problem with the ID theorists.

To be perfectly honest, I find it difficult to believe any one theory. People’s minds and their souls are so very complicated that it is rather difficult to think that it was completely and purely evolutionary, and yet, to have God just decide to and proceed to slap together what is now ‘human’ and make everything just the way it is now, and just plunk them down onto a fertile ground seems kind of hokey to me as well.

But see, he DIDN'T make it as it is now. He made it perfect about 6,000 years ago. Then the serpent came and since he was miserable and wanted to make everyone miserable with him, he lied to Eve, told her that God was wrong, don't believe him when he says "if you eat off this tree you'll die". She didn't trust what God said, and CHOSE to believe the serpent instead, and now everything has gone to shit over the last 6,000 years or so. God didn't make it like this. He made a perfect world and humans screwed it up for everybody. Now the serpent is using men to try to convince people that God is wrong (again) about what he said (In the beginning God created...), and people are choosing to believe the serpent instead. Same story, same species, just a different lie.

The fact that different people view God differently tells me that there’s more than one way to believe and to have faith. The bible is not the only way, and therefore it doesn’t belong in school. The teaching of religion belongs in your house or your church.

I absolutely and totally agree. However...evolution as taught as origin of man is a religion too. And my children shouldn't have to learn it in school, either.

Something scares me about teaching creationism in the classroom. It begs children not to question. No? I was taught evolutionism. No one ever brought me to church and told me “this is what you need to think” – or even “This is what we believe”. I was taught that science is just that, ‘science’ – studying, assuming, testing, drawing conclusions and linking things together in a way that makes sense.

Science is science. and it is studying, testing, drawing conclusions and then testing those conclusions, then having OTHER people test the same conclusions in the same way and getting the same answer, every time. (Assumption is not science.)

Evolutionary theory as it relates to origin of man is NOT science. It is all about assumption and guessing. You can't prove any of it. It's not science.

And yet still I believe in <i>a</i> god. it’s just not necessarily <I>your</I> God. Or, rather, not the <i>same way</i> you think of Him. I think it would be comforting to close you eyes and imagine that God looks familiar.

It seems so much easier to <i>know</i> wholly and completely that your belief is correct.
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Wow, this got a lot wordier than I had intended. Must be off for now, work to do and all that rot.

I agree. My Creator may not be the same as your God. And he/she might not be the same as Elspode's Creator God, or the Hindu God, or the Egyption Dieties.

And I don't think Creationism or Intelligent Design or Evolution as it relates to origin of man need to be taught in school with my tax money.