From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 20:57:56 EDT
George and Debbie,
For details of the urban legend of "the lost day," check out
www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm.
As George knows far better than I, it is physically impossible for the
earth to be stopped in its rotation without the most catastropic effects.
Debbie, the word "conjure" is the clue to the fact that treating such events
as actual historical events turns God into a magician, and I do not believe
that our God does magic tricks.
St. Augustine said it well (I thank Jim Miller for the quotation): ".
God, the Author and Creator of all natures, does nothing contrary to nature;
for whatever is done by Him who appoints all natural order and measure and
proportion must be natural in every case." Augustine of Hippo, Reply to
Faustus the Manichean, Book XXVI, 3.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "Debbie Mann" <deborahjmann@insightbb.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 9:57 AM
Subject: Re: YEC Advocate
> Debbie Mann wrote:
> >
> > No, I'm not a YEC, nor a rhinocerous either, which is the kind of skin a
YEC
> > would need around here. However,
> >
> > If God can do anything, why can't he break his own laws? So maybe the
flood
> > wasn't in 2900BC. Maybe it was in 5000BC and there isn't any evidence of
it.
> > After all - God can do anything. He held the sun up for Joshua and
turned it
> > back for someone else (help me - it was an Old Testament sign, I usually
get
> > out the resources and look these things up - but I'm flying fast right
now.)
> > If God can stop the earth from turning and keep us from falling off of
it -
> > or move the sun and not cause major orbital problems for everything in
the
> > neighborhood, why can't he make a siltless flood? And conjur up the
> > necessary water?
> >
> > By the way, I read, years ago, an article by YEC that said that there
was
> > astrological evidence of the offset caused by those two astronomical
> > maneuvers. Anyone care to comment?
> >
> > On a very serious note, where does one draw the line? There's
archeological
> > evidence for so much. There are details of the Bible that agreed with
> > history centuries before we knew that they agreed with history. But how
does
> > one discern what is literal?
>
> Debbie -
> The question isn't what God _could_ do but about what God _has_ done.
Biblical
> testimonies to the character of God indicate that he isn't capricious &
insistent on
> showing off. & scientific evidence is that God has acted - at least in
the vast
> majority of phenomena - in accord with rational laws. Could God violate
those laws?
> Yes. Does he? Apparently not very often.
> The story about NASA scientists confirming that God made the sun stand
still in
> Joshua's time is a Christian urban legend that has been in circulation for
a long time
> but has absolutely no basis in fact. (The NASA web site has a denial of
this - sorry I
> don't have the exact info now. maybe someone else does.) Just on the face
of it, the
> claim in the story that the scientists "found a day missing" doesn't even
mean anything
> to someone who knows celestial mechanics.
> There are archaeological confirmations of some biblical accounts, but not
all
> the accounts in the Bible are of a kind that one should expect to find
such evidence
> for. We will never excavate the historical Garden of Eden because there
was no such
> Garden. & that doesn't mean that the Bible is in error. It means that
Genesis 2 is a
> theologically true account but not an historical narrative.
>
>
> George L. Murphy
> gmurphy@raex.com
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
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