Boudica,

That was an excellent summary of a simple truth. I was never able to explain it that well.

The point about the chicken wings is very good.

You are right about the Bible. Adam and Eve is the creation story of the Jews. It is not more or less correct than other creation stories (and it is in fact the same creation story shared by Sumerians and most Semitic tribes including Israelites).

The Bible is a collection of myths, legends, and stories. Some parts are myths (and were never meant to be understood literally), other parts are legends (and have a true core), wile other parts are true stories (or possibly true stories).

For example Adam and Eve is a myth. That's why their names, Hebrew for "human" and "living", are so generic. A legend or true story would be able to mention a name or title.

The stories of Noah and Abraham are legends. I am convinced they have a true core. That's why the characters have titles (but not names).

But later stories, like Salomon's story, are probably very close to historic truth. That's why the characters are mentioned by name.

Precisely!

Have a good week.

well, I'm doing it again - lol.  Sorry to bore you. 

Thanks.  I'm glad someone gets me. 

That is because you are not aware of the linguistics involved.

"Adam" is not a name, it really is a word. Mankind wasn't named after him but vice versa. The Semitic word "adam" precedes Genesis.

Yes, the words mean things. And in this case the word meant "man".

I am talking about millenia-old legends, not current events. Today we know who, say, "Vladimir Putin" is. But in an ancient legend, we can safely deduce that the more specific a legend is, the more likely it is that we can find evidence for the legend's factuality.

We will never find evidence for the (literal) Adam and Eve story, simply because we have little to go by. "Eden" is simply the name of a region in Mesopotamia. The word is Sumerian and means "steppe". It presumably designated the land outside the marshlands.

That word is the only "fact" we have in the story. Other than that we only heard that "man" (as in mankind) and "living" (as in alive) lived there.

Believing in the literal truth of all of Genesis is denying what the Torah is.

Torah means "law" and the history and myths contained within it merely serves as a help in interpreting the law.

For example, all law has to be applied AS IF all humanity have a recent common ancestor. It's the law. And Jews must treat slaves well because Jews were once slaves in Egypt. Even if Exodus turned out to be wrong as well, the story would still fullfill its purpose for the legal work that is Torah.

We know today that Adam and Eve didn't happen. I doubt that many people in the deep past believed that it was literally true. But the reason Torah contains the Adam and Eve story is not and has never been because humanity was created a few days after the world was created, but so that we can understand the law contained within Torah.

Christianity sees the Bible as a religious work that explains the universe. But that was not its purpose. Torah was and is foremost a Jewish legal tradition.

It was never meant to explain the world.

Here's one:

Wild chickens were/are native to Asia.   Red and gray jungle fowl are thought to be the ancestors of modern chickens.

Oh, and chickens can fly...clumsily and not very far(a few feet), but they can fly.  At least well enough to escape their enclosure and get up on roosts.

Modified appendages are present a lot.  They are vestigial, which means they lose most or all of their original function.  A great example is a penguin's wings that have become flippers.

As for our heavy domestic birds...they're just too big and fat to really fly.  They've been selectively bred that way for thousands of years.  Some domestic turkeys today don't even reach maturity (they still chirp like chicks) before they grow into monsters fit for the Thanksgiving table.

Anywho, evolution works...it's really easy to see.

~Zoo

I raised my share of chickens for over a decade.  I know what they're capable of.

Hell, I can even recognize some of their calls.  Like "Here's food!" or  "I'm sitting on these eggs and I'm going to peck you."

~Zoo

I really don't see why christians think that Evolution could not be compatible with a creation story.  It's incompatible with the idea that God said "behold" and every creature that exists today existed then.  We all know creatures die out, share DNA, follow specific paths.  Natural Selection can, for the faith-minded, be taken to mean "God-directed Selection" and work out the same way, with divine influence.

I don't even believe in any sort of intelligent design yet I can see how it could easily work.  I don't see why Christians are so intent on sticking to old, insane, or science-contradictory ideas (T-Rex ate leaves and lived alongside Adam before the Fall!!! Cracked me right up.) when their faith can still fit inside science quite nicely in a lot of cases.

Exactly~ Thank you, finally I find someone who believes similarly.

I've been on vacation (away from home, work and computer) and am just now getting caught up reading some of the comments....

ICECIRO POSTS:

Iceciro,

"Evolution",  in that man descended from apes, is 100% incompatible with the Creation according to Genesis. I tried to explain that in my post 12. First it must be noted there are 2 working definitions of "evolution"....Christians believe in "evolution" as in small genetic variation within definite limits of genera (kind), species or families ....we see this in all the varieties of birds, dogs, horses, bees, etc. God created the initial "kind" of plant, animal or sea creature and over time secondary causes they changed into all the different variations that are here today.....this "micro evolution" is real science...and is in no sense at variance or incompatible with the Scriptural account of Creation or Christianity. 

The 2nd definition of Evolution was developed from Darwin's work in the 1800s. His pseudo-scientist followers theorize all plant, animal and human life, INCLUDING MANKIND, as coming from a simple cell that "evolved" according to a natural series of descent. It was given an anti or no God twist and has now become a worldview, a philosophy, an ideology.  To date, Evolutionists have provided not one scintilla of proof, no physical or empirical evidence of "evolutionary" crossover of one species into a different one..with different DNA...I'm talking specifically about man's supposed descent from apes.

Special Creation, Christianity and certainly the Catholic Church all teach man is  composed  of body and soul. His soul cannot owe its existence to Evolution for it's a simple spirtual essence which makes us stand very far apart from animals. It is by our soul that we are made in the image and likeness of God and it is our soul which is the immortal part of us. It can therefore only come to us by way of God Himself.  

leauki posts:

You keep saying this and it doesn't make any sense....

What do you mean "if"? While Genesis doesn't tells in the scientific sense, it does tell us that an All Wise and All Powerful Creator God did indeed create each species (kind) individually, including man. The world and everything in it was made for the glory of God. At the end of every creation day, Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31 has it that "and God saw that it was good" and in v. 31, "very good".

Scripture also tells us that all things are made of Him, through Him and in Him....which means all things derive their being from God's activity....that they are preserved by His continued providence and exist in His immense omnipresence. There is no way possible that God was a bad engineer and designer. Without His sustaining "hand", everythhing would lapse into its original nothingness...

God is both All Perfect and He created us.....God is Creator and we are the created....infinite difference in all respects.

LULA POSTS:

LEAUKI POSTS:

Being Infinite, God has everything in Himself which by His mere fiat comes into being. So, out of God Himself came the designs of the universe and all that's in it, including mankind.

God said, "Be light made, And light was made" Gen. 1:3

God said, "Let there be a firmament --Waters. And it was so." 5:6-7

God said, "Let the land appear. And it was done." 5:9

God said, "Let the earth bring forth the green herb --And it was done." 5:11

Psalm 148:1-5  "Praise the Lord, O sun and moon, praise Him all ye stars and light. ......for He spoke and they were made; He commanded and they were created."

God created all His designs out of nothing. This is a great mystery that can only really be glanced at by our limited minds. Man makes things and is dependent upon God's created materials to give them objective reality. Man works, God wills. God's creating is recorded in Genesis 3 times, v. 1, 21, 27.

This is God and being Pure Spirit cannot be weighed in a pysicist's scale, or analyzed in a test tube any more than can faith, hope and charity in Him.

You say:

My God is The Incompetent Engineer. I say, hang in there.... The discoveries of scientists lead more and more to the realization of His Creative Power and can only be accounted for by belief in an Intelligent Designer, God.

Here is a quote from a NYTimes article, back in 1930 which is relevant today....(italics is my addition)

"What do you mean by light? A beem of light comes speeding from a star, travelling hundreds of years and finally it reaches our optic nerve and you see the star. How does it do that? (Can Cosmic Evolution ever explain?)  We have our corpuscular theory of light, our wave theory and now our quantum theory, our wave theory, and now our quantum theory, but they are all just educated guesses. About as good an explanation as nay is to say that light travels by the will of God."  

Leauki posts: #20

I believe in God Who is "I AM WHO AM" of Exodus 3:14. It is the term Christ designated Himself when He told the Jews of His existence before Abraham was born, who had died 20 centuries previous to that occasion. "I AM WHO AM" is the most exact and comprehensive name of God, Eternal, Self Existent, Infinite, without beginning and without end, or change, and the source of all other beings. You might be correct in saying we don't believe in the same God because the "I AM WHO AM" of Exodus does not fit what you wrote above especialy the part I highlighted.

One of my best friends and mentor, a man in his mid 80s, is now travelling in Ireland, his home country. He delights in attending Catholic Mass there. Last I heard, Ireland has held firm in rejecting abortion and staying away from the EU...is that correct?