Of Dante, At 07:54 AM 11/19/98 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> Indeed. But if any kind of truth can be conveyed such poetry which
>makes use of cosmological models which are now obsolete, then why not
God's >truth?
>
So how many people believe the Bible today because of Dante's book? What
real difference has it made today? A few English teachers torture their
students with it and a few Ph.D.'s are awarded. But unfortunately, it is
irrelevant to today's world and is viewed as an anachronism. And yes I have
read the Divine Comedy, all of it, AFTER I LEFT COLLEGE because I wanted to
read it. I enjoyed it, but it has no impact on my life and I doubt on
anyone-elses.
>> I keep finding it fascinating that the Bible says 'In the Beginning God
>> created the heavens and the earth" and that is the only part of Genesis
>> 1-11 we believe. But if all the rest of Genesis 1-11 is
>> wrong/allegory/whatever, why should I believe that Genesis 1:1 is telling
>> me of a real creation by a real God?
>
> Who are the "we" who only believe the first verse of Genesis?
> The first verse of the Bible is of course _not_ a statement which can be
>verified by scientific or historical study. I'm not sure that in any
>reasonable way you can claim that it conforms to your criteria for truth.
>Gen.1:1 is a theological statement about God's relationship with the
universe >in space & time. In different ways, so is the rest of Gen.1-11.
So, if Genesis 1:1 is only a statement about God's relationship with the
universe WITHOUT indicating that God actually created this universe as an
act in history, then I really find this unfathomable. How can this merely
be a statement of God's relationship without also and at the same time
being a statment of ACTUAL creative ACTION occuring at a given point in
space and time? Creation IS verifiable via the singularity at the Big Bang.
The universe can not be cyclical because of thermodynamic relations so it
must have a beginning and thus have been created by SOMETHING--either the
Creator or the Eternal Vacuum [lets call it eV for short :-) ]. But
something created it. And if the eV created it, then Genesis 1:1 is NOT a
true statement of God's relationship with the universe because God would
not then be the CREATOR.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm