Christ Centered Gamer

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... anity.html

discuss.

I recently made my thoughts known about this, so I am curious to see what others have to say

I consider myself a middle earth person, while I believe the earth is more than 15,000 years old, I'm not sold on billions of years

ccgr wrote:I consider myself a middle earth person, while I believe the earth is more than 15,000 years old, I'm not sold on billions of years

Just out of pure curiosity (because I haven't heard that number before, not because I want to start a debate), why the number 15,000? Is there a particular creationist hypothesis that you're basing that on?

Oh my bad, I guess Young Earth Creationists believe it's 6-10,000 years old

So there are Christians who reconcile Genesis with Evolution...

...and in other news, water is still wet.

This isn't really news, just another person's take on it. While I don't share this view, it does have the useful effect of demonstrating that skepticism of Evolution need not be based on religion, since people are able to find a comfortable reconciliation between the two.

ccgr wrote:Oh my bad, I guess Young Earth Creationists believe it's 6-10,000 years old

Where do you consider yourself on that scale? Are you somewhere between that and billions, or are you on the higher end of the YEC numbers (about 10,000 or so)? (I swear I'm not picking on you, I've just never heard of "middle-earthers" and I'm interested in what you believe.)

This isn't really news, just another person's take on it. While I don't share this view, it does have the useful effect of demonstrating that skepticism of Evolution need not be based on religion, since people are able to find a comfortable reconciliation between the two.

Agreed... there have been Christians accepting evolution for as long as it's been around. This article treats it like it's a new and radical idea, when it really is old news.

I think upper thousands as in 100-200K. Anything is possible, could God have done it in 6 24 hour days, sure He's all powerful. Could it have been 6 timer periods? That's a possibility too. I haven't researched it much so these are just opinions, nothing more or less. It's one of those scenarios where I wish I had a time machine to go back and get definitive answers and report it back to everyone.

Clearly being a Middle Earther means one believes in Hobbits, Dwarves, and Elves.

If wishing the Tolkien universe is real is wrong, I don't want to be right

Haha, I was going to say. I'm a middle-earther, too.

Eru Ilúvatar and the Valar sung Arda into existence, the Music of the Ainur.


Duh.

I feel like this discussion really hinges on how different traditions understand scripture. A term that gets thrown around a lot in some traditions is the "inerrancy" of scripture. There are two different kinds of inerrancy when it comes understanding the bible.

1. Soteriological inerrancy - The bible is completely free from error in all things concerning who Jesus is (his character, nature, etc) and the salvation (new, abundant, eternal life) that Jesus offers the world.

2. Epistemological inerrancy - The bible is completely free from error in all things. Every single word is factual without exception.

It's this second kind of inerrancy that gets problematic. I'm in the first camp, because the bible just has flat out errors contained within it's pages. Let me clarify, I absolutely believe the bible is 100% true and free from deception, but it is not 100% factual. There's an important difference between "true" and "factual". ex. The book of Job says the Earth is held up by pillars. The earth is not held up by pillars. Does this mean Job is a liar? No. What it means is that Job was working from an ancient Jewish worldview. That's what I mean by "true, but not factual". As Christians, I think it's important we hold fiercely to the most important truths (the person and work of Jesus Christ), and learn to live with a bit of unsatisfied curiosity and uncertainty with everything else.

I look at the Bible in a similar way. It isn't all factual, although in my opinion that's because much of it is meant to be symbolic. Jesus taught by using parables, and the Bible itself is filled with parables.

That also leaves a lot of room for people who have doubts about the literal truth about such things as Creationism, the Flood and so on.

For me, I try to look at things from a point of view that says there might be far, far more than that. What if the Creation story in Genesis describes not the creation of the planet, but rather, a process of terraforming? What if the Flood wan't worldwide, but only in the regions in and around the Middle East? These possibilities still acknowledge the hand of the Divine Creator, but also feel a little easier to reconcile for many.

I used to spend an immense amount of time thinking about these things, but lately I've tried to be more philosophical about it. Ultimately, how we look at these things don't impact our Salvation one way or the other. Getting into Heaven doesn't require us to carry water for either side of the Creation vs. Evolution debate. That's why I'm not sure why people sometimes get so incredibly worked up over them.