Hamsterbait - I have read this somewhere on a thread on this very board. It said the Catholic Church has taken a more liberalized view on literal creationism and now does not view Adam and Eve is an absolute literal, but as kind of a creation story-myth. I think it came from a thread I was posting back and forth on where I quoted out some research on Chinese Chronology vs. Time of Flood vs. Time of Adam's Creation. I also think I have it myself in a book on creationism. I will look for the book this weekend - maybe I can find it! Will post Monday whatever happens...
Shining One - Here you misunderstand old James Woods:
Uh James,
You are 'chasing your own tail.' We barely have any real, provable, complete knowlege of any scientific observations as it is. You can ask, "What if, Why is this," and so on forever and ever, never getting anywhere. Each one of us are unique human beings and are obviously of greater design than any other creature.
James Woods does chase tail (or at least, did so in the past). However, he does not chase his own tail. Such an action would be recursively repulsive. Now then, the thread poster asked for a serious answer - I was attempting to give one with a little humor, using the process of making points by asking questions of obvious absurdity.
Witnesses believe that there was no animal or plant predative activity until after the flood. That is why the presence of obviously predatory charactics in those animals I mentioned lead to a dilemna. If God did not know that Adam would send, culminating in the flood and turning the earth into a predatory meat-eating circus, what were the fangs and claws and poison glands all about? And how did these things survive on grass?
An analog of the poster of the thread's question - if Adam was perfect and intended to live forever, what was the immune system for? Did God know that he was going to sin and get susceptible to disease, and would need it later? This violates WTSociety doctrine - they believe that God held back the knowledge of Adam's sin from himself...so again, why the immune system...sort of a "just in case" situation, like fangs?
Your answer is - Science is all just an manmade illusion, so don't worry about anything that doesn't make sense; just keep saying Jesus Christ over and over...
My answer is - if it obviously doesn't make historical or scientific sense, then it must be something to be taken as an illustrative, non-literal story. The "garden of Eden" is the unprovable illusion, not the simple hard facts of scientific research. Many people are able to follow Christ if they wish without following such fantasy as a Lion eating literal straw or thinking that the creation was 7 days or 7000 years only.
James
