You are putting words in my mouth. I don't refuse to except the creationist's idea because it has god in it. I refuse to except the book of genesis as a LITERAL work of non-fiction. As an allegorical fable, Genesis is a great work that has a beautiful poetry to it but as a factual historical account it seems to me to be improbable.
ok you're probably right, but we'll get into that further below.
003:001 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field
which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Talking snakes. Not something you see everyday.
what's wrong with talking serpents? if you believe in the spiritual world, then talking serpents is definitely not an issue. demon possession is a very real thing. but if you don't believe in something just because you haven't experienced it with your mindset, then that is a very close-minded mindset, because you cannot trust your senses too, sometimes they deceive you.
004:017 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and
he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the
name of his son, Enoch.
Cain knew his wife.....because she was his mother? The problem of incest in Genesis is difficult.
imagine a world where there's only you and your family living in it. it is incest, but during that time it was not perceived as how we do today. just like slavery, it was a very different thing back then. as generations change, social interaction changes, you can't expect people back then to live like people now. or even our generation's mindset to last for, say, the next 5 years.
005:005 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty
years: and he died.
Adam lived to be 930 years old. Not something you see in the our world.
there is actually a scientific explanation for this. and it has been tested, unlike evolution. some scientists took two similar tomato plants and placed them in 2 identical air tight containers. one of them they supplied regular oxygen levels and air pressure levels, and the other they doubled the oxygen levels and air pressure. in the first one, the plant grew and died normally like how a normal tomato plant would grow and the 2nd one grew fruits that were almost 2 times the size, and the plant lasted much much longer.
i know this isn't the most scientific source but,
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/164359. explains why dinosaurs were so big back then.
007:008 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of
fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
007:009 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and
the female, as God had commanded Noah.
...
007:021 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl,
and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
If evolution doesn't provide new species and the book of Genesis is literal, then we can only deduce that every animal that exists today must have existed in those times and been on board the gopher wood arc. The logistics of constructing a wooden boat of that nature to support the quantity of livestock and feed for a period of 40 days is implausible.
the thing about using the English translation is that it's very hard to understand what the bible really says. but using the English NIV bible, it definitely didn't say bring 2 of every animal. if you noticed from Genesis chap 6-9, the world "kind" was used 16 times. It's very hard to explain what one kind of animal is, but I know that God didn't ask Noah to bring on the ark 2 of every animal, but 2 of every kind of animal. "normally when you ask someone what kind of animal is this?" it's different from "what animal is this?". for the former, someone would generally reply, "it's a bird." while to the latter, "it's a bald eagle." but that's just English language, we'll never understand unless we look into the Hebrew texts. have you?
007:011 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month,
the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the
fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of
heaven were opened.
007:012 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Not only did Noah build an immense wooden boat, he did so when was 600 years old. Quite a feat!
same as above. people were likely healthier and stronger, and lived longer.
you might be wondering how come the atm pressure and oxygen levels are so low now. the answers are all in the bible. prior to the flood, where it rained excessively, it was recorded that it was the first time rain ever happened to earth. So christian scientists believed that back then there was a canopy of water hanging in the atmosphere, which has been speculated by non christian scientists alike. this canopy of water was the reason behind the high oxygen levels and atm pressure, and after the great flood, it rained off and there was no more. so after that people lived increasingly shorter lives. it didn't just BOOM!, drop to 70 or 80. but it gradually decreased (avg lifespan). also it was recorded that the tides rose, the earth flooded not because of rain only. and as you might know, the moon controls our tides on earth, even now. so it's not impossible that God, who created these, could shift the moon's position and caused the tides to rise.
So, in my opinion, a reading of Genesis should not be literal. And further, a belief in a higher power and a understanding of evolutionary biology need not be mutually exclusive.
it's an opinion you have to back up with facts, not with other opinion. you're essentially saying, you don't believe in something because you've never experienced it with your senses, and it goes against your moral issues (incest), and that it's impossible for someone now to live to 600, let alone build an ark...all these are opinions after opinions. there has to be a line drawn.
