Or… just maybe… as has been done on multiple times throughout history… The evidence we find in God’s creation may require us to reinterpret what we read as literal description of God’s interaction with his physical creation.
It would be no more inaccurate for me to say “What’s saddening to see is when Christians feel so influenced by a specific interpretation of scripture that they resort to mindwashing the young and feeble-minded.”
We all remember what you wrote. No need to play games and deny that you implied that my rabbinical scholar professor was a heretic.
Yes, I understand your idea of God includes the fact that He is the greatest abuser of animal life in the universe, being guilty of purposely engineering millions of years of pain, suffering and death for His own amusement. But you keep avoiding my direct questions to you. What do you have to hide that you don’t want to publicly state? Why did you put heretic in quotes?
2 Peter 3 does not give us that leeway. By “reinterpreting” the Bible in this way, you become guilty of throwing in your lot with the scoffers that Peter specifically warned about.
I’m reasonably certain you don’t believe in a flat earth, a solid dome sky supported by pillars, and an immovable earth. How do you justify your lack of faith in the portions of the Bible that would, if taken literally, teach exactly those concepts?
More strawmaning. This is sad. Nobody claimed that God is guilty of engineering suffering for his amusement.
Should I respond in kind by claiming that your belief that God “engineered” the sacrifice of animals in the Mosaic Law is because you believe God is guilty of abusing animals for his own amusement? Did God “engineer” the torture and death of Jesus Christ on the cross because it was “for his own amusement”?
In the course of dishonestly mischaracterizing what others are saying, you also risked blasphemous territory.
You are taking those figures of speech out of context (anthropocentric or phenomenological language) and wrongly comparing those to what we have in Genesis 1, which is a straightforward historical narrative.
But putting that aside momentarily, you dodged the thrust of my statement. Peter did not take time to warn us that scoffers would one day believe the earth was round, did he? Peter was concerned about two very specific things the scoffers would target, and the shape of the earth was not one of them.
You did. You just said that “very good” means “exactly as intended”, and you believe God said that in reference to a world of millions of years of death, disease and suffering prior to Adam and Eve’s sin, correct?
Why did you put heretic in quotes? (I wonder if you’ll be too embarrassed to ignore this yet again?)
I understand that this is your opinion. What we now have is a disagreement about whether or not your opinion is correct. Let’s check out verses that you believe support your point.
5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
I completely agree that God brought everything in the universe into being. I just don’t see any time-frame for the creation process. It appears to me that you are adding your own interpretation to the words recorded in 2 Peter 3.
The verse specifies more than the mere fact that God created. Are you selectively reading? Did you miss where it says God created the earth out of water?
No. Do you know where scientific evidence strongly suggests that life began? If your answer is “the water”, then you are correct! Regardless, there is still nothing about when God began His creation, and nothing about how long it took. Please explain how your own words are not added to what is written in this passage.
What?? Re-read the passage. It doesn’t say God created life out of water, now does it? It says he created the earth out of water. Do you see how this is blatant eisegesis?
You got me… I accidentally read “life” into the passage. You are correct, of course.
Now please explain how you can read this passage as evidence of a 144-hour creation roughly 4000 years prior to Peter’s writing, when none of it is evident in the passage. Please also relent on the drama. I’m asking a serious question - third time is a charm?
Do you not understand that earth in Genesis 1 translates the Hebrew word ERETZ, which refers to land, not “planet earth”? When the KJV Bible was translated, English speakers understood “earth” as referring to soil and “the ground” they stood on. Only with the modern age did English speakers think more and more in terms of “planet earth” when they heard the word earth.
Yes, God created the land (continents and soil) from out of the water. This concurs with modern science which also tells us that planet earth was once covered in water. Here’s some explanations:
Also:
https://nai.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2013/10/Cooler-Early-Earth-Article.pdf
But this is my whole point. No, Peter doesn’t mention the timeframe specifically in that passage … but what he does mention is incompatible with the views of any mainstream scientific account of earth’s origins. According to the big bang, the earth coalesced out of molten material. It was not created out of water. Water came to be on the planet, again, according to old earth accounts, by some series of events later. Maybe ice comets brought it? They don’t really know. But in any case, it was not created out of water as Genesis 1 and 2 Peter 3 clearly state.
Any child can recognize that ‘very good’ is not ‘perfect’. If YECs could only understand in their infinite wisdom and respect for scripture that God’s plan was a two-creation model from before the beginning of the first, and that the first was therefore subjected to futility by design, before the fall.
@AllenWitmerMiller rather than playing your game, I am going to keep pushing you on the things you are trying to bury and ignore. My previous ignored comments to you:
More strawmaning. This is sad. Nobody claimed that God is guilty of engineering suffering for his amusement.
You did. You just said that “very good” means “exactly as intended”, and you believe God said that in reference to a world of millions of years of death, disease and suffering prior to Adam and Eve’s sin, correct?
Why did you put heretic in quotes? (I wonder if you’ll be too embarrassed to ignore this yet again?)
So the 2 Peter passage does not specify when God created or how long He took to do it. Allen has added evidence that scientific hypotheses about the early planet are consistent with the passage. So we are back to the question of whether or not it is reasonable to re-think our understanding of the creation passage. I do not believe it is unreasonable or heretical to say that modern scientific evidence of God’s creation is sufficient to suggest we reconsider a literal interpretation of the creation account.
My response to this argument is twofold:
You’re trying to chop off the obvious part of earth’s history that would have come before that early ocean got there. The article does not appear to be arguing that the planet itself was formed out of water. Presumably, that water got on the planet from some outside source. The planet would have started out dry. How does that not get to be counted as ‘land’?
This is something Peter says scoffers are going to deny. Yet you are quoting something that is being promoted as a mainstream view, not something people scoff at. Who is scoffing at what you just presented here?
One more time:
Do you not understand that earth in Genesis 1 translates the Hebrew word ERETZ, which refers to land , not “planet earth”?
Also, it is not The Big Bang theory which describes a molten earth. Not even close. Just as a lot of Young Earth Creationist websites do on a regular basis, you confused the BBT with the formation of the solar system.
The Big Bang Theory describes the rapid expansion of space-time from the singularity.
Also, quit ceaselessly dodging the questions and repeating questions I already addressed. The gaslighting is also not appreciated.