BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Also, death had to have been part of the Garden of Eden - how else would Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit from the Garden? Eating involves digesting and thus killing of the cells in the fruit.

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I can't believe that you actually typed that.

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men" (Romans 5:12)

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Jesus' words in Mark 10:6 do not necessarily mean creation must have taken place over a short period of six, 24-hour days. The meaning of "the beginning" can simply refer to when God started his creation of mankind, or the whole period of time during the start of creation up until the point He rested. And if you want to get technical, "the beginning" could not have meant that Adam and Eve were there at the start of it all, because they weren't created until the 6th "yom".

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What a sorry excuse for logic. That reasoning only works if you misinterpret Yom to in fact mean millions of years. If you disregard the meaning of morning and evening. Your argument regarding the creation of the sun is entirely irrelevant as the division of the earthly cycle into day and night, evening and morning, 24 hour days occurs in the 3rd verse of the Bible.

"Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:3-5).

That's what God did. That's what is recorded. If you want to throw that out to believe a bunch of midwit Faucis, that is your choice.

Furthermore, regardless of whether it is directed or random, the entire premise of evolution is that you begin with simpler biologic entities and progress towards more complex ones through the deaths of the simpler ones over the course of millions of years.

You need to quit thumping a Bible you clearly don't believe in its entirity.

Realitybites said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Also, death had to have been part of the Garden of Eden - how else would Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit from the Garden? Eating involves digesting and thus killing of the cells in the fruit.

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I can't believe that you actually typed that.

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men" (Romans 5:12)

Quote:

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Jesus' words in Mark 10:6 do not necessarily mean creation must have taken place over a short period of six, 24-hour days. The meaning of "the beginning" can simply refer to when God started his creation of mankind, or the whole period of time during the start of creation up until the point He rested. And if you want to get technical, "the beginning" could not have meant that Adam and Eve were there at the start of it all, because they weren't created until the 6th "yom".

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What a sorry excuse for logic. That reasoning only works if you misinterpret Yom to in fact mean millions of years. If you disregard the meaning of morning and evening. Your argument regarding the creation of the sun is entirely irrelevant as the division of the earthly cycle into day and night, evening and morning, 24 hour days occurs in the 3rd verse of the Bible.

"Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:3-5).

That's what God did. That's what is recorded. If you want to throw that out to believe a bunch of midwit Faucis, that is your choice.

Furthermore, regardless of whether it is directed or random, the entire premise of evolution is that you begin with simpler biologic entities and progress towards more complex ones through the deaths of the simpler ones over the course of millions of years.

You need to quit thumping a Bible you clearly don't believe in its entirity.

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So how did eating work in the Garden of Eden? Perhaps the "death" being referred to in Romans 5 referred to humans, while life/death cycles were present for all other creatures since the beginning?

How in the world is the sun's light determining the 24-hour day and night cycle being created on day four irrelevant to the fact that in your interpretation the first 3 days before it were 24 hour days by the sun's cycle, which hadn't existed yet? If you want "sorry excuse for logic" you need look no further. It sounds like you're in a pretty good jam here.

Nowhere in the Genesis account does it say that plants and animals didn't die until after man fell. Didn't the animals eat the plants? Doesn't that mean the death of the plant? Genesis only says that man would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. And that doesn't necessarily have to mean physical death, but spiritual death - the true death.

In summary - you're forcing your assumptions and coming to the completely unnecessary conclusion that anyone who doesn't agree with your assumptions is going against the Bible. I would have thought that the sun's 24 hour day/night cycle being created AFTER the first 3 "days" had gone by would have caused you to rethink your assumptions like any rational person would, like someone interested in finding the truth, but instead you've doubled down on the absurdity like someone merely interested in defending only what you want to believe.

Realitybites said:

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Is the Roman Catholic Church the original Christian Church that dates back to 33 AD?

No. The Patriarchate of Rome was at best the third Christian Church that was formed, and probably not even that. The Church of Jerusalem was the first, the Church of Antioch was the second. This can be easily verified by tracing the missionary journeys of the Apostles in the Book of Acts as a matter of historical record.

How did the Roman Catholic Church come to be?

The Roman Catholic Church as we know it today was founded in 1054 A.D. Papal Legates sent by Pope Leo the IX to Constantinople demanded that the Churches in the East recognize Leo the IX to be the head of all Christian Churches. The other churches refused, and after mutual excommunications the Roman Patriarchate left the universal Christian communion of the first millenium and became the Roman Catholic Church.

Has the Roman Catholic Church maintained the faith once delivered to the saints?

No. After 1054 A.D., the newly formed Roman Catholic Church held a series of its own councils in which it formalized a variety of doctrines and added them to the Christian faith as it had been known for 1,000 years. This include, but are not limited to, the Lateran councils where priestly celibacy was mandated and the Councils of Toulouse and Trent which forbade Christians from buying, selling, or owning Bibles and banned their translation in to the Vernacular.

"Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary. Bookdealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them.' (Council of Trent: Rules on Prohibited Books, approved by Pope Pius IV, 1564)."

Most recently, in the second Vatican council of the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church remodeled its church service, having not only previously discarded the ancient Christian worship service of the first few hundred years of the church but also its own Tridentine and pre-Tridentine Latin masses (a source of significant grief for the Trad Catholics who dispute Vatican II).

These are only a few examples, but a Christian in Rome in 950 A.D. would find the modern Roman Catholic church entirely unrecognizable. On the other hand, he would recognize the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Churches, as authentically Christian.

What is the real history of the early Christian Church?

Most Christians know that the Christian Church came out of Judaism, but they aren't that familiar with the details. For those who are interested, this is an excellent book.

Orthodox Worship: A Living Continuity with the Synagogue, the Temple, and the Early Church

The earliest Christians continued to worship in Synagogues and Temples on the Jewish sabbath (again, a pattern easily seen when reading the book of Acts) and then gathered to celebrate the Eucharist following this. This pattern continued until followers of the Way as it was called at the time were cast out of the synagogues in fulfillment of John 16:2. The Jewish liturgy was then joined to the celebration of the Eucharist to form a complete Christian worship service on Sunday morning.

(More later)

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What if I told you that the Grace Age Church wasn't even started by Peter, it was started by Paul? The Cathoics have it wrong. The Gentile Church started when Paul saw the risen Christ on the Road to Demascus. It did not start on Pentecost. Penticost was all Jews. The House of Cornelius were all Gentiles. The Jews who converted were still observing the Law and were not Grace age belivers or the Church. They were believing Israel.

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I would have thought that the sun's 24 hour day/night cycle being created AFTER the first 3 "days" had gone by would have caused you to rethink your assumptions like any rational person

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The obvious scientific answer - if you must insist on having one - is that the earth's rotation about its axis defines our 24 hour day and began in Genesis 1:3.


Had that not been the case, every living thing would have experienced gravity in a very different way.

Realitybites said:

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I would have thought that the sun's 24 hour day/night cycle being created AFTER the first 3 "days" had gone by would have caused you to rethink your assumptions like any rational person

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The obvious scientific answer - if you must insist on having one - is that the earth's rotation about its axis defines our 24 hour day and began in Genesis 1:3.


Had that not been the case, every living thing would have experienced gravity in a very different way.

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Without the sun, there is no "morning" or "evening" on the earth, which Genesis uses to mark the "days"/yoms in the first 3 days.

Your gravity point isn't really relevant, as the earth's rotation won't have anything to do with "morning" or "evening" if there is no sun.

It appears I may be the only person here who sees this as a narrative by Moses, how he started the Pentateuch.

The Bible starts with "In the Beginning, God"

That's on purpose. Moses was a humble man called by God to lead a people to a promised nation, yet most of those people had no real knowledge of Who God was, even who they were as a people.

So there they were, out in the wilderness trying to understand what this was all about, and Moses told them about God, about the Covenant, about the Law and about the Plan.

This was not about Math, Physics, or Government. This was Moses introducing Hebrews who had known only life in Egypt - and therefore their culture was based on Egypt for most of the people - to the One God, and His special plan for the Hebrew people.

How long it took God to create the world misses the point.

xfrodobagginsx said:

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Penticost was all Jews. The House of Cornelius were all Gentiles. The Jews who converted were still observing the Law and were not Grace age belivers or the Church. They were believing Israel.

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While this is correct in terms of being a chronological historical observation, in very short order the unbelieving Jews expelled Jewish Christians from their synagogues as described in John 9:22: "the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue" resulting in both Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ continuing together in a single New Testament Church. Furthermore, it's nearly impossible to say that the Jews who converted were not Grace age believers given that it was they who originally received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

God declared that there was a morning and an evening. I don't know if He turned the lights on in the morning and off at night, or exactly how he did it. I do know that He said it, therefore it was so. It's not necessary for me to understand the technical aspects of how He did it.

I do know that 1st John 1:5 states " This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." While this is normally applied to God's moral character, it's not an issue at all for such a being to have a morning and evening occur whether or not he created the sun first.

You are free to selectively edit and believe or disregard the Bible as you see fit. I believe the whole thing.

Oldbear83 said:

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It appears I may be the only person here who sees this as a narrative by Moses, how he started the Pentateuch.

The Bible starts with "In the Beginning, God"

That's on purpose. Moses was a humble man called by God to lead a people to a promised nation, yet most of those people had no real knowledge of Who God was, even who they were as a people.

So there they were, out in the wilderness trying to understand what this was all about, and Moses told them about God, about the Covenant, about the Law and about the Plan.

This was not about Math, Physics, or Government. This was Moses introducing Hebrews who had known only life in Egypt - and therefore their culture was based on Egypt for most of the people - to the One God, and His special plan for the Hebrew people.

How long it took God to create the world misses the point.

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Many people have taken this sort of a position...either approaching the entire thing as an allegory (as you seem to do), or applying a day-age hypothesis as BTD does, or even inserting an evolutionary gap as Cyrus Scofield did in his study bible's notes on the Book of Genesis. The issue that all these approaches run headlong into is that it is only a literal reading of the text that demand a literal savior and as I've mentioned before, that the Christian story is one of a devolutionary (sin -> death) not evolutionary (death -> life) world.

The other issue is that at what point do you start treating the Genesis account as factual history? Chapter 4? Chapter 5 says that Adam lived 930 years and proceeds to go on to chronicle shortening human life spans. Do we throw that out too? What about Genesis 7 that details the flood? Or is everything before Chapter 10 that lists the generations of Noah invalid? But wait...now we are at Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Keep that or toss it?

Pretty soon you've tossed the inspiration of half the book of Genesis or more.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Nowhere in the Genesis account does it say that plants and animals didn't die until after man fell. Didn't the animals eat the plants? Doesn't that mean the death of the plant? Genesis only says that man would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. And that doesn't necessarily have to mean physical death, but spiritual death - the true death.

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"...and God saw it was good." (Genesis 1:21, Genesis 1:25)

"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21).

So no. You can clearly see the difference between the divinely revealed state of all creation at the time of creation and its fallen state subsequently.

Realitybites said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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It appears I may be the only person here who sees this as a narrative by Moses, how he started the Pentateuch.

The Bible starts with "In the Beginning, God"

That's on purpose. Moses was a humble man called by God to lead a people to a promised nation, yet most of those people had no real knowledge of Who God was, even who they were as a people.

So there they were, out in the wilderness trying to understand what this was all about, and Moses told them about God, about the Covenant, about the Law and about the Plan.

This was not about Math, Physics, or Government. This was Moses introducing Hebrews who had known only life in Egypt - and therefore their culture was based on Egypt for most of the people - to the One God, and His special plan for the Hebrew people.

How long it took God to create the world misses the point.

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Many people have taken this sort of a position...either approaching the entire thing as an allegory (as you seem to do), or applying a day-age hypothesis as BTD does, or even inserting an evolutionary gap as Cyrus Scofield did in his study bible's notes on the Book of Genesis. The issue that all these approaches run headlong into is that it is only a literal reading of the text that demand a literal savior and as I've mentioned before, that the Christian story is one of a devolutionary (sin -> death) not evolutionary (death -> life) world.

The other issue is that at what point do you start treating the Genesis account as factual history? Chapter 4? Chapter 5 says that Adam lived 930 years and proceeds to go on to chronicle shortening human life spans. Do we throw that out too? What about Genesis 7 that details the flood? Or is everything before Chapter 10 that lists the generations of Noah invalid? But wait...now we are at Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Keep that or toss it?

Pretty soon you've tossed the inspiration of half the book of Genesis or more.

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Dude, do you even read before firing off a retort?

I did not say 'Genesis' is allegory, I said you are missing the point when you obsess on esoteric details.

Think about it - you have a nation out in nowhere, with no real idea what is coming next. Do you really think the Hebrews gathered around Moses and asked how long it took for the Earth to form? Do you think their top concern was gravitational effects on durative dilation?

Genesis was about beginnings on many levels - the world, the Hebrew people, the nation of Isreal yet to be, the law and the Covenant. Moses found a way to explain things in a manner which satisfies any reasonable question. That's not about 'allegory' or some literary device, it's about Moses introducing the Hebrew people to their place and purpose, and creating the opportunity for them to know God in their lives in a way unique in the world.

Now it seems you are playing at legal loopholes. I have written before how Jesus strongly rebuked such stunts. You may recall the story (was Jesus making an allegory?) where a Pharisee was 'thanking' God for his blessings, and bragging about how well he kept the law, while sneering at the tax collector across the way. The tax collector, for his part, was guilty of sin because he did not dare to raise his eyes from the floor, but begged God for mercy. You may recall that it was the tax collector, not the erudite and educated Pharisee, who was reconciled with God, per Christ.

Same. Thing. Here.

I personally consider Genesis to be true in its claims, especially its history. But my faith does not hinge on humans confirming Scripture, because God does not need the approval of men.

Busy TarpDuster also brought a very solid point of reason about how you count days, when night and day were not separated until the Fourth "Day" in the Genesis account. You ducked that point, you know, which is a problem if you want to obsess on crossing all the i's and dotting the t's, as a friend of mine used to say.

But in the end, I and many millions of believers manage not to lose any of the inspiration, the beauty, the wonder, of the Genesis accounts, just because you can't accept that your details are just that, peripheral.

Oldbear83 said:

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Busy TarpDuster also brought a very solid point of reason about how you count days, when night and day were not separated until the Fourth "Day" in the Genesis account. You ducked that point, you know, which is a problem if you want to obsess on crossing all the i's and dotting the t's, as a friend of mine used to say.

But in the end, I and many millions of believers manage not to lose any of the inspiration, the beauty, the wonder, of the Genesis accounts, just because you can't accept that your details are just that, peripheral.

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His assertion that the division did not occur until the sun was created is incorrect. You can clearly see that occurred in verse 3. However, dismissing a history that the entire salvific mission exists to provide an antidote to as myth or allegory undermines the entire religion. They are far from "peripheral details".

Realitybites said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Busy TarpDuster also brought a very solid point of reason about how you count days, when night and day were not separated until the Fourth "Day" in the Genesis account. You ducked that point, you know, which is a problem if you want to obsess on crossing all the i's and dotting the t's, as a friend of mine used to say.

But in the end, I and many millions of believers manage not to lose any of the inspiration, the beauty, the wonder, of the Genesis accounts, just because you can't accept that your details are just that, peripheral.

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His assertion that the division did not occur until the sun was created is incorrect. You can clearly see that occurred in verse 3. However, dismissing a history that the entire salvific mission exists to provide an antidote to as myth or allegory undermines the entire religion. They are far from "peripheral details".

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WOW.

So the creation "days" were determined by the 24 hour light/dark cycle of the sun.... which wasn't created until day 4.

This is a prime example of someone being so intent on defending the beliefs that one wants to believe, that they'd rather embrace absurdity than be wrong.

Realitybites said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Nowhere in the Genesis account does it say that plants and animals didn't die until after man fell. Didn't the animals eat the plants? Doesn't that mean the death of the plant? Genesis only says that man would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. And that doesn't necessarily have to mean physical death, but spiritual death - the true death.

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"...and God saw it was good." (Genesis 1:21, Genesis 1:25)

"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21).

So no. You can clearly see the difference between the divinely revealed state of all creation at the time of creation and its fallen state subsequently.

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"Good", not "perfect".

Romans 8:20-21 isn't saying that animals and plants didn't die. You're reading what you want into it. We know that in Genesis, man and animals ate the plants (Gen 1:29-30), which means the plants died.

Lets go over what we know. God declares his creation in Genesis to be good. In Romans, he states that the whole creation has fallen due to the actions of man. In the previous Romans verse, God says sin came into the world through that man, and death as a result.

So rather than falling back on 'Plants die so Genesis is wrong!" The obvious answer is that plants were created to be food and God does not consider the consumption of them to constitute death. (Genesis 2:6).

So in which chapter and verse do you start to believe Genesis? If the answer is "none of it", in which book do you start to believe the Old Testament?

I tried to have a reasoned discussion. You keep repeating claims addressed earlier, so enjoy your circle dance and have a good night.

Realitybites said:

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Lets go over what we know. God declares his creation in Genesis to be good. In Romans, he states that the whole creation has fallen due to the actions of man. In the previous Romans verse, God says sin came into the world through that man, and death as a result.

So rather than falling back on 'Plants die so Genesis is wrong!" The obvious answer is that plants were created to be food and God does not consider the consumption of them to constitute death. (Genesis 2:6).

So in which chapter and verse do you start to believe Genesis? If the answer is "none of it", in which book do you start to believe the Old Testament?

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I believe all of Genesis. All of the Bible. Your problem is that you think one must accept your assumptions in your interpretation, or they don't believe in it. Even if your assumptions are so flawed as to require accepting the absurd! Instead of humbling yourself and realizing that the absurdity might suggest that your assumptions may not be correct, you double down it, and require we mindlessly accept the absurdity as well, or we get charged with not believing the Bible. It's just so ridiculous. You can't have a rational discussion with people like this.

What's worse, you straw man others' argument in order to make your point. I never argued "plants die, so Genesis is wrong!" and everyone knows it. So I don't understand what you hope to achieve by this. It just makes you look dishonest. Obviously, I'm arguing that your assumptions about Genesis is wrong, not Genesis itself. Genesis never says that the animals and plants never died after God created them. Neither does Romans say that had it not been for man's sin, that plants and animals never would have died. These are all your assumptions. Your view that "obviously, God didn't consider plants dying to be 'death'" is just another one of your assumptions, ad hoc.

So when you ask "which chapter and verse do you start to believe Genesis", what you're really asking is "which chapter and verse <of my assumptions about what Genesis means> do you start to believe it?"

I have no straw man arguments, nor assumptions. I take what is written in black and white literally. No need to try and shoehorn millions of years into days. No need to try and say that creation was decaying and dying before the fall, an assumption clearly refuted by Romans.

Genesis 5:5 states that Adam lived 930 years. You believe this? Or is that another optional Bible verse, because there is no day-age theory to try and obfuscate that one.

I've addressed an absurdity with your interpretation of Genesis. Now let me address another point:

When God says "Let there be light" on the first day, what was the source of the light? Was it the sun? Again, how could it be, since the sun wasn't until creation day four?

And if it is by this light which the "morning" and "evening" of the first day were determined, isn't it possible - just possible - that the first day was NOT 24 hours long in accordance with the sun, but rather in accordance to whatever this light was? And therefore isn't it possible that this "day"/yom could have been a very long period of time, as even the Hebrew word "yom" allows for?

Realitybites said:

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I have no straw man arguments, nor assumptions. I take what is written in black and white literally. No need to try and shoehorn millions of years into days. No need to try and say that creation was decaying and dying before the fall, an assumption clearly refuted by Romans.

Genesis 5:5 states that Adam lived 930 years. You believe this? Or is that another optional Bible verse, because there is no day-age theory to try and obfuscate that one.

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You literally straw manned my argument, as I clearly described above. Do you really think people have that short of a memory?

Romans did not say that there was no death before the Fall, and in fact as I've clearly shown there had to have been.

Despite the absurdity that your interpretation of it being 24 hour days leads to, you're intent on sticking with it, huh? Figures.

Of course I believe Adam lived for however long the Bible says. That isn't what's in question. Remember day four of creation already happened, and so going by the sun and rotation of the earth to determine "years" had already been instituted by Adam's time.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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. Remember day four of creation already happened, and so going by the sun and rotation of the earth to determine "years" had already been instituted by Adam's time.

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Lets be perfectly clear here.

The 24 hour day was defined on day 1, not day 4.

"Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:3-5)

The sun and stars were created on day four.

"Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day." (Genesis 1:14-19)

The text actually says that they were signs for seasons, days, and years. That is to say the earth's rotation from day 1 defined our 24 hour yom, not the sun. Unless you're a flat earther who believes in a geocentric universe, the meaning of yom in context is clearly a 24 hour day.

Furthermore, plants are created on day 3. If yom meant millions of years, you have a photosynthesis problem that leads to their extinction. So now your flawed interpretation of yom has put you in a postion where you are arguing with God about His order of creation, not just the length of an earth day.

So no, it is actually impossible for yom to mean millions of years. Seriously, just put that argument in the closet and forget about it. I had figured that as someone who believes in scientism you might trot out something more substantial trying to make an argument from special relativity, time dilation, or the lake and stick model of four dimensional spacetime (none of which address the fundamental conflict between Christian and evolutionary cosmology).

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Genesis never says that the animals and plants never died after God created them

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"In Genesis 1:31 the Hebrew term translated as "very good" is (tb med). The word tb refers to things that are pleasant, qualitatively good, morally good, or that has good character, while med serves as an intensifying adjective in this verse. Thus, Scripture did not merely say that all that God made was goodit declared that it was exceedingly good. This verse describes the Lord's assessment of his creation, so we need to keep his character at the forefront when discerning what "very good" means. Since God is perfect, anything short of perfection could not accurately be identified as "very good." Would the perfectly holy and morally pure Creator call a world full of death, suffering, and disease "very good"?

Of course not. All these things you are posting are merely attempts to reconcile your faith in evolution with the Biblical text. But it is instructive to see someone who repeatedly trots out Romans 10:9 disregard the clear meaning of many other Biblical texts because of his faith in scientism.

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Romans did not say that there was no death before the Fall, and in fact as I've clearly shown there had to have been.

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Once again, just stick to what is written.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin..." (Romans 5:12).

and

"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay." (Romans 8:20-21).

And although you find the assertions of the early portions of Genesis icky, "To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you..." (Genesis 3:17).

The effects of the fall were wide ranging and affected all of creation.

Your assertion that death was present in the Garden of Eden rests on the claim that the eating of fruit proves that death pre-existed the fall due to the destruction of the cells of the fruit.

In light of scripture, this assertion is silly.

Realitybites said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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. Remember day four of creation already happened, and so going by the sun and rotation of the earth to determine "years" had already been instituted by Adam's time.

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Lets be perfectly clear here.

The 24 hour day was defined on day 1, not day 4.

"Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:3-5)

The sun and stars were created on day four.

"Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day." (Genesis 1:14-19)

The text actually says that they were signs for seasons, days, and years. That is to say the earth's rotation from day 1 defined our 24 hour yom, not the sun. Unless you're a flat earther who believes in a geocentric universe, the meaning of yom in context is clearly a 24 hour day.

Furthermore, plants are created on day 3. If yom meant millions of years, you have a photosynthesis problem that leads to their extinction. So now your flawed interpretation of yom has put you in a postion where you are arguing with God about His order of creation, not just the length of an earth day.

So no, it is actually impossible for yom to mean millions of years. Seriously, just put that argument in the closet and forget about it. I had figured that as someone who believes in scientism you might trot out something more substantial trying to make an argument from special relativity, time dilation, or the lake and stick model of four dimensional spacetime (none of which address the fundamental conflict between Christian and evolutionary cosmology).

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Okay, baby steps -

What is the source of light, when God says "Let there be light" in Genesis 1:3?

Realitybites said:

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Quote:

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Romans did not say that there was no death before the Fall, and in fact as I've clearly shown there had to have been.

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Once again, just stick to what is written.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin..." (Romans 5:12).

and

"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay." (Romans 8:20-21).

And although you find the assertions of the early portions of Genesis icky, "To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you..." (Genesis 3:17).

The effects of the fall were wide ranging and affected all of creation.

Your assertion that death was present in the Garden of Eden rests on the claim that the eating of fruit proves that death pre-existed the fall due to the destruction of the cells of the fruit.

In light of scripture, this assertion is silly.

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Baby steps for this one too:

Did man and animals eat the plants in God's creation before the Fall?
Were the plants "alive" before eating them?
After eating them, are the plants still alive, or do they die?

xfrodobagginsx said:

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The OT Books were accepted by the Jews at the time of Christ.

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Which Jews?

The Sumerians, Sadducees, Qumran, Pharisees, Essenes, or the Jews that followed Jesus? There was NO one settle canon of the OT for the Jews until 200 years after Christ.

Jesus, his apostles used the Septuagint, which contained the Deuterocanon. It is quoted more than 80% of the time in the NT.

xfrodobagginsx said:

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The NT books were recognized early on because they were written by the Apostles or an associate of an Apostle. The 2 exceptions were James and Jude whi were half Brothers of Jesus Christ Himself.

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Not all those books made it in.

The Didache, 1 Clement, and The Letter of Barnabas all meet those same criteria. One could argue that the Shepard of Herman falls into that category as well.

Someone had to make those decisions. That someone was the Catholic Church.

PS. Jesus had no half-brothers. He may have had stepbrothers from a previous marriage of Joseph or cousins, but no half-brothers.

Realitybites said:

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Is the Roman Catholic Church the original Christian Church that dates back to 33 AD?

No. The Patriarchate of Rome was at best the third Christian Church that was formed, and probably not even that. The Church of Jerusalem was the first, the Church of Antioch was the second. This can be easily verified by tracing the missionary journeys of the Apostles in the Book of Acts as a matter of historical record.

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That's a biased timeline. Here's a better view of reality:


We know that both Peter was martyred in Rome in June of AD 67. So we know that the basis of the Church was setup before that date. The earthly head of the Church was always Peter.

Realitybites said:

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How did the Roman Catholic Church come to be?

The Roman Catholic Church as we know it today was founded in 1054 A.D. Papal Legates sent by Pope Leo the IX to Constantinople demanded that the Churches in the East recognize Leo the IX to be the head of all Christian Churches. The other churches refused, and after mutual excommunications the Roman Patriarchate left the universal Christian communion of the first millenium and became the Roman Catholic Church.

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Why is there a list of 37 Bishops of Rome (the Pope) dating back to Peter if there was no Catholic Church before the NT canon?
Here's a list for those that are interested in the unbroken line of Popes since 33 AD.

Realitybites said:

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Has the Roman Catholic Church maintained the faith once delivered to the saints?

No. After 1054 A.D., the newly formed Roman Catholic Church held a series of its own councils in which it formalized a variety of doctrines and added them to the Christian faith as it had been known for 1,000 years. This include, but are not limited to, the Lateran councils where priestly celibacy was mandated and the Councils of Toulouse and Trent which forbade Christians from buying, selling, or owning Bibles and banned their translation in to the Vernacular.

"Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary. Bookdealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them.' (Council of Trent: Rules on Prohibited Books, approved by Pope Pius IV, 1564)."

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Why was this? Did the Church want a monopoly of the sale of bibles? No! It was preventing doctrinal error and heresies from being printed by inaccurate translations and misinterpretations. Permissions were sought and given to those that produced correct translations of the bible.

The Church as maintained and better developed doctrine since the Great Schism in 1054. It is the Orthodox that has wavered on matters on contraception and marriage and divorce.

Realitybites said:

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Most recently, in the second Vatican council of the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church remodeled its church service, having not only previously discarded the ancient Christian worship service of the first few hundred years of the church but also its own Tridentine and pre-Tridentine Latin masses (a source of significant grief for the Trad Catholics who dispute Vatican II).

These are only a few examples, but a Christian in Rome in 950 A.D. would find the modern Roman Catholic church entirely unrecognizable. On the other hand, he would recognize the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Churches, as authentically Christian.


(More later)

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The Trinitrine mass was not banned by Vatican II. The Councils still allows it to be celebrated. Vatican II allowed for the mass to be said Versus populum (Latin for "towards the people") and in the common vernacular. The order and structure of the mass is still the same as Justin Martyr described it in 155 AD.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Original apostolic authorship/origin, original first hand eyewitness testimony. If authorship was unknown/disputed in the early church, it was not considered. Whether they were read or not at "Mass" (there wasn't a Roman Catholic Mass in the first century church) would only be a distant secondary issue at most, maybe even tertiary, and not at all unless the criterion of original apostolic authorship was met.

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Well, there was certainly mass in the second century. As I stated in another post, Justin Martyr (155 AD) described the exact same elements in the mass that are still celebrated today and in the same order.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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The first Christians had already been circulating the four Gospels as Scripture, as well as Paul's letters. All based on their authority as orginal apostles. This authority exists on its own merit, completely independent from any proclamation by a church council.

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How do we KNOW that they are scripture? None of the NT letters explicitly claim to be scripture.

Why didn't we choose the other letters (1 Clement, the Didache, etc.) that were both read at mass and written those in the apostolic age?

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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The question for you I've asked before, but didn't get an answer to, is: when is a writing the word of God - right at the moment it's written, or only after it is recognized as such, whether formally or informally?

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It is the Word of God when it is cosigned by the Holy Spirit. Why does it matter? I've never stated that the Church "makes" those letters the Word of God. The HS does that.

It took someone (the Church) to recognized them as such.

You can run from reality, but it was the Church that determined what was the actual Word of God?

[

xfrodobagginsx said:

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What if I told you that the Grace Age Church wasn't even started by Peter, it was started by Paul? The Cathoics have it wrong. The Gentile Church started when Paul saw the risen Christ on the Road to Demascus. It did not start on Pentecost. Penticost was all Jews. The House of Cornelius were all Gentiles. The Jews who converted were still observing the Law and were not Grace age belivers or the Church. They were believing Israel.

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I would say that your claim has ZERO historical evidence.

These Hyper-dispensationalism beliefs were made up in the 20th century.

Please do not use the false claim that the "Catholic Church killed all the members of this group, destroyed all their writings, and were forced underground."

There is also ZERO historical evidence of that claim as well.

And there it is: that claim to Superior Authority that Coke Bear keeps saying he isn't pushing.

Older is no claim to authority, and no, pretending Peter was a Roman Catholic because you want him on your team, does not make it so.

It's enough to make Jesus face palm!

Quote:

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Okay, baby steps -

What is the source of light, when God says "Let there be light" in Genesis 1:3?

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(1) It Wasn't the sun.
(2) It might have been God himself.
(3) It might have been something else God created, the mechanism of which isn't specifically described.
(4) It doesn't matter in the least.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Did man and animals eat the plants in God's creation before the Fall?

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Yes.

Quote:

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Were the plants "alive" before eating them?
After eating them, are the plants still alive, or do they die?

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Both biological and agricultural sciences have dealt with plants as if they are biological machines.

Discussing the "life and death" of a plant in the same way you would discuss that of an animal or non-Christian human has no meaning whatsoever. It's like saying your car "died". Its states are funcitonal, and non functional.

Obviously God created them to be foodstuffs for the rest of creation - that is to say, all animals were herbivores prior to the fall, and the people of God were vegetarians until they exited Noah's Ark.

Coke Bear,

Do you have an over/under on any of these candidates?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/pope-francis-successors-list-revealed-34706853

My money would be on Tagle or Parolin.

Realitybites said:

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Quote:

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Okay, baby steps -

What is the source of light, when God says "Let there be light" in Genesis 1:3?

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(1) It Wasn't the sun.
(2) It might have been God himself.
(3) It might have been something else God created, the mechanism of which isn't specifically described.
(4) It doesn't matter in the least.

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I believe that the source of light is Jesus Christ because in the end of time he's going to be the light rather than the sun. So it stands to reason

Coke Bear said:

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xfrodobagginsx said:

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The OT Books were accepted by the Jews at the time of Christ.

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Which Jews?

The Sumerians, Sadducees, Qumran, Pharisees, Essenes, or the Jews that followed Jesus? There was NO one settle canon of the OT for the Jews until 200 years after Christ.

Jesus, his apostles used the Septuagint, which contained the Deuterocanon. It is quoted more than 80% of the time in the NT.

xfrodobagginsx said:

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The NT books were recognized early on because they were written by the Apostles or an associate of an Apostle. The 2 exceptions were James and Jude whi were half Brothers of Jesus Christ Himself.

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Not all those books made it in.

The Didache, 1 Clement, and The Letter of Barnabas all meet those same criteria. One could argue that the Shepard of Herman falls into that category as well.

Someone had to make those decisions. That someone was the Catholic Church.

PS. Jesus had no half-brothers. He may have had stepbrothers from a previous marriage of Joseph or cousins, but no half-brothers.

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SMH. We already went through the Jewish canon. I had already debunked the claim that the Jewish canon wasn't settled by the time of Jesus. In one ear, and out the other.