reply to post by impaired
First off i am what you could call an agnostic theist. I believe very much that there is a god, but i am open to the possibility of me being wrong. To
me it is just good science and good philosophy to not pass judgement on philosophically complex matters such as religion.
Your first mistake is that you are taking the bible literally, furthermore you are using the english translation as the basis for this argument.
Someone already posted how the Hebrew Word "yom" has several different meanings. It can refer to a literal day or an indefinite amount of time. This
is also true for other hebrew words. With that in mind if you are going to make an argument based on the bible (and this goes for all sides,
christian,atheist, agnostic) you have to understand how it applies in a historical context as well as in its literary context. All sides are notorious
for taking a quote out of context either deliberately or inadvertently.
Also i do not think you have done much research into where the idea of an old earth can come from via the bible. I'm not trying to bash you here
since the YEC's and The mainstream atheist and agnostic movements do very little to high.
In the original literal Hebrew Text translation when god creates the earth it says that the earth was Waste and Void. Now the key word here is Waste.
Why would the earth be wasted? What was it ? Was it a mass extinction of some sort? Did god hit the reset button?
Now here is where things get interesting. We all know that god said let there be light correct? But here is the crazy thing. God did not create the
days directly after he created and seperated the light from darkness. It wasn't until he created the sun and moon to rule over day and night that we
have the actual light sources that can clearly define a 24 hour day.
So how did god create anything in one day before days even existed?
The most logical answer (for me at least) is that god DID NOT create in literal days, Instead he created over periods of time. This would also mean
that the correct translation of the hebrew word "yom" refers to a period of time as opposed to a day.
Here is another thing to think about.
The bible tells us that gods work is self evident. It proves itself to be real. What does Science do? Science shows us how things work, it relies on
self-evident data that can be independently tested and reviewed for the sake of coming to a conclusion. A good scientific theory proves itself. Anyone
can replicate the results of experiments based around that theory. Therefore it stands to reason that our scientific findings are confirmation of gods
work. ALL SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS. So if all the worlds leading scientists say that man evolved from a common ancestor such as an ape then by default we
must either assume or consider this discovery to be an actual analysis of gods work.
Simply put to spit in the face of science is to spit upon god and that which allows us and his other creations to exist.
AS for your other ten points, i think i might have some intriguing and hopefully original answers. I don't want to present anything to you that may
be cookie cutter because these issues are too complex to reduce into one overall answer.