{"id":447,"date":"2005-11-17T18:04:07","date_gmt":"2005-11-18T01:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=447"},"modified":"2005-11-17T18:16:21","modified_gmt":"2005-11-18T01:16:21","slug":"into-the-labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=447","title":{"rendered":"Into the Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Note: this is Part 4 of a series of posts on Christianity and evolution.  Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=433\">introduction<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=434\">Part 1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=435\">Part 2<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=439\">Part 3<\/a> for background.<\/p>\n<p><b>4. The various creationist models, from strict Young Earth Creationism to re-creationism et al, are all fallacious, and some are pernicious and heretical. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take a side trip to Noah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Flood here as well.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Young Earth Creationists would have us believe that they are the only ones who believe in the literal meaning of the Bible.  Not only is this claim impossible, but it would be false even if it were possible.<\/p>\n<p>It is impossible to understand the literal meaning of the Genesis unless you are a native speaker of 2nd-millennium BC Hebrew.  If you are not, then any attempt to understand it requires interpretation.  Therefore, it is impossible to understand the plain literal meaning of the Bible without interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Young Earth Creationists are lying when they claim to interpret Genesis literally.  If they actually adhered to the literal meaning of the words, they would assert the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That light and a diurnal cycle of days and nights existed prior to the creation of the sun, moon and stars, which were created in order to provide light and a diurnal cycle.<\/li>\n<li>That the sky is a solid object.  The word translated &#8220;firmament&#8221; or &#8220;expanse&#8221; literally denotes a solid object.<\/li>\n<li>That the universe was created in 6 days, and <i>also<\/i> that the universe was created in 1 day, which Genesis 2:4 plainly states.<\/li>\n<li>That plants were created before animals or humans, and <i>also<\/i> that humans were created before there were plants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>No YEC adherent will assert these things, but come up with all kinds of mental backflips to explain them.  <b>Those backflips constitute interpretation, and a tacit admission that one cannot read Genesis 1 literally.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>So if YEC theory does not consist of a literal reading, what does it consist of?  There is actually a continuum of views on the subject.  The most extreme view is that the universe was created in 6 24-hour periods starting October 22, 4004 BC.  All physical evidence to the contrary (ice cores, the geological record, light from distant stars) was simply created in situ by God.  (YEC adherents will begin by arguing that no such evidence exists; when faced with overwhelming evidence they fall back on this &#8220;appearance of age&#8221; line).<\/p>\n<p>This poses a fundamental problem.  If we cannot trust the evidence of our senses with respect to temporal sequence, then we do not know if we really have free will.  If God could have created the universe in 4004 BC looking like it was created 16 billion years ago, then She could perfectly well have created it 5 minutes ago, implanting the necessary memories into our brains to make us think that our past exercises of free will were genuine.  Romans 1:20 states that God&#8217;s invisible qualities are made know in the visible world.  Young Earth Creationists, therefore, must believe that God is a liar.  This is heresy.<\/p>\n<p>This problem, and the overwhelming evidence for the age of the earth, has caused people to interpret Genesis 1 in ways that allow for the evident long period of time.  For some, there is a 16-billion-year gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and the rest of the chapter occurred in 4004 BC.  Unfortunately there doesn&#8217;t seem to be much physical warrent for this theory.<\/p>\n<p>Others interpret the &#8220;days&#8221; of Genesis 1 as taking long periods of time.  II Peter 3 states that God takes a different view of time than we do, so the events in Genesis 1 could well have taken place over long periods.  Viewed this way, Genesis 1 seems to match up rather well with the scientific account.  In fact, astronomer Hugh Ross of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reasons.org\/\">Reasons to Believe<\/a> has an intriguing theory that Genesis 1 depicts the creation of the universe <i>from the viewpoint of someone standing on the surface of the planet<\/i>.  It actually works quite well, and avoids the contradictions I mention above.<\/p>\n<p>The other end of the spectrum is where Genesis is interpreted as being a poetic and figurative account of creation that conforms to the contemporary ancient Near Eastern scientific model in the physical realm, but introduces startling new truth in the area of God&#8217;s relationship to creation and humankind.  This is where I stand, obviously.<\/p>\n<p>There are two other main passages in Genesis that are significant in this debate.  In Genesis 3 we find the familiar story of the Fall of Mankind.  Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden, are tempted by a serpent, and eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and are cast out of paradise into a world of toil, pain and death.  The reason YEC adherents would have you believe this a literal historical account is that St. Paul makes a comparison between Adam, through whom sin entered the world, and Christ, through whom sin was defeated.  This is an important point.  However, consider this question: is St. Paul&#8217;s message strengthened or weakened if we interpret the Adam of Genesis as one literal person, or as symbolic of <i>every person who has ever lived<\/i>.  (&#8220;Adam&#8221; in Hebrew means &#8220;the man&#8221;, and &#8220;Eve&#8221; means &#8220;the living one&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>And spiritual truths are revealed in stories and parables all over the Bible.  For instance, we are told that the second greatest commandment is to love one&#8217;s neighbor.  The prototypical neighbor is the Good Samaritan, who is in fact a &#8220;fictional&#8221; character.  Daniel had visions of fabulous statues and beasts, all of which were figurative and symbolic in nature, but which we interpret as presenting theological truth.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, from my research on metaphor and figurative language, I believe that metaphorical and figurative language is in fact a <i>better<\/i> way to communicate truth about God and spiritual things than plain literal language.  And, of course, the Bible is full of poetry.<\/p>\n<p>The second point is the story of the Great Flood that &#8220;covered the earth&#8221;.  Unsurprisingly, the story in Genesis is copied from a Babylonian source, <i>The Epic of Gilgamesh<\/i>.  There are in fact a great many cultures around the world that tell stories of a great flood, from which only a few are saved.  So there is obviously a historical basis for the story &mdash; we must not interpret it figuratively as we can Genesis 1.<\/p>\n<p>In the YEC account, the Biblical story of the flood says that the earth was covered with water at least 15 cubits (about 30 feet) higher than Mt. Everest.  There are a couple of problems with this theory.<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, <i>where did all the water go<\/i>?  The volume of water necessary to flood the earth to a height of 30,000 feet is many times that of the oceans.  Where did it go?  YEC&#8217;ers will come up with all kinds of crazy theories, none of which have any Biblical or physical basis whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the Biblical account is kind of confusing when it comes to the exact events.  The Hebrew text in question reads &#8220;and the waters rose 15 cubits, and covered the mountains&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It is true that the text also says that the world was covered in water.  But Luke 2:1 says that the Emperor Augustus ordered a census of all civilization.  I&#8217;m sure the Han Emperor of China was impressed.  When a writer says that something affected the whole world, that means the entirety of the world that she knew about.  So when a Mesopotamian writer says that his entire world was covered in water, all we can interpret from that statement is that Mesopotamia was covered in water.  And in fact we see in the archeological record vast inundations in the 3rd millennium BC in Mesopotamia.  If it was rainy enough there to cover the entire flood plain, it quite well could have been rainy enough in other parts of the world for great floods there as well, and thus the plethora of stories.<\/p>\n<p>So here we find a situation where a straightforward reading of the Bible lines up quite tidily with the physical and cultural record, and yet the YEC movement would promote their own far-fetched and convoluted interpretation as truth.<\/p>\n<p>Young Earth Creationism makes me sad.  It&#8217;s as if there were a group of people today who insisted on the geocentric model of the solar system, based on their intepretation of Psalm 50.  These people are simply confusing the issue; they are so much energy on trivialities and wrong-headedness when there is still so much sin and suffering in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for Part 5, in which I describe how the Big Bang and evolution fill me with wonder at the marvelous character and attributes of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note: this is Part 4 of a series of posts on Christianity and evolution. Read the introduction, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for background. 4. The various creationist models, from strict Young Earth Creationism to re-creationism et al, are all fallacious, and some are pernicious and heretical. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take a side trip to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=447\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Into the Labyrinth&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}