KT45 Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 Can someone explain this to me. I remember when I was in chruch that my pastor was discussing the beginning of the world. I guess she did some studying and was beginning to accept the age of the world being much older. So she used some scripture that said one day is like a thousand years to God or something to that nature. She then applied it to the Genesis story saying the earth could be 6 days old or 6 million years old which fits with science. I guess she was accepting evolution as a possiblity. The congregation cheered grateful that their theology couldn't be challenged. I was kinda confused but dimissed it. Now that I look back I see some issues. If liberal christians are saying that each day in creation was 1000 years or 1,000,000 years doesn't that create even more problems? Let say that God did make each day one million years. On the third day of creation the grass, plants and trees were created. Lets make the third day last one million years so the vegetation has a chance to evolve. Now on the fourth day the sun was created. So that means for the whole third day, for one millions years, the evolving plant didn't have any sunlight to feed off of. So this doesn't make sense to me. I have no problems with christians believing the bible but this is obviously a story why not just read it like that? Christians, can you explian how you few the genesis story? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 Based on the liberals I've met, I'd say liberal Christians would explain Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as creation myths that convey a theological truth. Depending on the liberal, he or she would say that the point is God created all that is. They would not get hung up on the details. Liberals are fine with looking for the spiritual meeting beneath or behind the literal meaning. Even fairly orthodox christians can read Genesis in a non-literal way. St. Augustine said that God created the universe fully formed in a moment of time, and the seven days are just His way of explaining to us, limited humans, what levels of complexity exist in creation. Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher living in the first century A.D., said that Genesis 1 gives the historical sequence of events and Genesis 2, which mentions human before animal, gives the levels of importance of the parts of creation as conceived beforehand in the mind of God. One of the ways fundamentalist Protestants run off the rails is that they tend to read most of the Bible in a literal way. Even in the early church, the bible was read on several levels at the same time: the literal, the anagogical (moral lesson behind a bible story), the allegorical or typological (seeing Christ in everything, even stuff in the OT)... etc. The justification for this is, for example, the way Paul or other NT writers allegorize OT passages to see a christological message in them. This is one of the arguments Jews today use against Christianity, i.e. the NT is based on a vast system of allegorical interpretation of the OT. Catholic and Orthodox Christians are cool with that because the earliest traditions of christianity did just that. Protestants, who insist on literalism, are in fact going against traditional Christian ways of using scripture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quicksand Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 I guess she did some studying and was beginning to accept the age of the world being much older. So she used some scripture that said one day is like a thousand years to God or something to that nature. She then applied it to the Genesis story saying the earth could be 6 days old or 6 million years old which fits with science. The verse, offhand is 2Peter3:8. See attached. I did a study on it. BTW.. I just read thru the thing, it's a bit fucked up. I designed this in AI CS1 and when I saved as a pdf, funny things happened and the jpg is built off that PDF. Too lazy now, but I will revise it at a later date. Got drinkin' to do and some vintage cameras to win on ebay. Damn materalist man-whore that I am. (I do have a pdf. Anyone what it, pm with an email and I will forward it over. I did this study a couple of years ago fyi) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snookums Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 I simply don't believe in the 'liberal' christian I don't get it either.....to me its a airy fairy concoction of the same old, same old.....& big deal, the individual gets to call themselves 'a liberal'...I guess thats better than calling yourself 'a crackpot christian' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crunk Bishop Posted August 17, 2006 Share Posted August 17, 2006 yeah, there's hardly any difference between a "liberal" christian and a Marxist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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