Ok, so a recent thread about the latest WT antiscience content (found here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/159423/1.ashx)
Has got me thinking...
It does seem really hard to hold active trust in the bible as the word of
god without being leery of science. After all, an attempt to massage what
is found in the bible so as to not conflict with modern scientific knowledge
does feel an awful lot like compromise.
However, this being the case I am also aware that most Christians are NOT
anti-science creationists, right? Hell, even JWs were ok with (limited)
Theistic Evolution in the 40s (http://www.seanet.com/~raines/theistic.html)
So how does this work exactly?
Specifically, how is the creation account in Genesis reconciled with the fossil
record, and the subsequent model of biological history we have of the origin
of life?
First off the order of things being created...
Genesis has it:
1. Heaven and Earth
2. Light (night and day)
3. Sky (a dividing "vault", with water suspended above it)
4. Dry land
5. Plants and trees (with seeds and fruit)
6. Sun, moon, and stars ("set in" the vault, as time keepers)
7. Sea monsters, Fish, and birds
8. Land animals (including "creeping things" and tame "cattle")
9. Man and woman
(or, in creation account 2.0)
1. Heaven and Earth (free of plants because there was to rain, and no man to till the earth)
2. Man
3. Plants (as a animal free garden that Adam was placed into)
4. Birds and land animals (in attempt to make a "helper for Adam)
5. Woman (because the animals were not suited to the task)
Whew...
Ok, so besides disagreeing with itself, this story does not line up except in
the barest manner with what we now know about the history of our favorite
"pale blue dot"
First, the order is hopelessly shuffled- In the fossil record:
Birds appear late on the world stage, well after land animals and "creeping things"
Seed plants appear well AFTER both sea and land life
Fruit plants and grasses don't appear until after birds
And, the myth shows blatant ignorance of many basic biological and astronomical realities:
-How are plants supposed to grow before god got around to creating the sun?
-Where is the sense in creating seeded and fruited plants before there are insects to pollinate them?
-Why is the moon listed as a "light source" when in fact it is more like a spherical mirror?
-Why are the stars recorded as being plopped in the sky almost as an afterthought when we
now know they have all been around far longer that the earth?
-"Day and night", being an arbitrary concept based on our odd on-again off-again relationship
of our rotating planet to our sun, cannot exist before said sun is created.
Ok, so it would seem that a "literal" reading of genesis is a lost cause so long as you are
unwilling to check your sense of reality at the door. If we want to hold in to the bible still
being god's word, we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that when god inspired the creation
account he got it wrong on purpose
????
I hear from "progressive" Christians that genesis is supposed to be read as an allegory, or metaphor.
A metaphor for WHAT? What exactly was god trying to accomplish by, when it come time to offer his thoughts
on the one of the most profound questions ever ("where did we come from), he gives us blatant misinformation?
If genesis is meant not to be taken literally, then what is the point?
[inkling]