Making waves (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 15, 2013, 11:32 (4180 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It is you who claim that the bible is not anti-evolution, so let me once more ask you to explain how the above account can be interpreted to mean that humans and chimps diverged from a common ancestor and were not specially created. If you can't do so, but can only plead that the bible is not to be taken verbatim, you may as well argue that the bible is not anti-evolution because we needn't take any notice of what it says.-DAVID: On page 67 of my book, science vs. religion, I quote a Nahmanides amazing description of our Big Bang theory taken from the first verses of Genesis. Minds greater than ours read the allegory of the bible and see far more than the mere words of weak translations.-The Big Bang has nothing to do with Darwin's Theory of Evolution.-DAVID: Once again, yom is a ancient Hebrew word. When Genesis says God created the beasts of the field at yom three, it doesn't tell us how long it took if yom is considered to mean an eon. That allows for an evolutionary process, which you and I agree, for which there is copious evidence. One must combine bible with science, and then there is a congruence, allowing for the artistic ways the religions put things.-You are determined to "cherry-pick" the reference to time, which I'm happy to accept as being made to fit in with the time scale of evolution. But you continue to dodge what you yourself consider to be the goal of evolution, which is the emergence of humans. This has always been the greatest source of controversy between creationists and evolutionists: the bible gives an account of how God created man (and woman) separately; evolution claims that man and chimps descended from a common ancestor. If you really and truly think this is merely the result of a "weak translation", or an "artistic way", I'm sorry, but until God gives us the "correct" translation or personally edits the text to fit in with your beliefs, I still see no choice but to say that the bible is anti-evolution. If we can't judge by the text we have, what else are we supposed to judge by?