Francis

I've just read this. Okay That's a Masonic term, actually - many of whom are also Protestants.

Because it may not be literal. The snake is Satan and he "spoke" to Eve, thus influencing her actions, but it may not have been with a literal voice and there may not have been a literal snake. Demons don't to be seen and heard in a physical sense, in order to make their presence known or felt. When people become demonicially possessed, no one can hear or see the demon, except perhaps the victim, who intensely experiences its presence.

So Christ died out of love for a building? "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her "(Ephesian 5:25).

The NT wasn't officially compiled until about 300 years after Christ. The Church, on the other hand, came into existence 50 days after Christ. The early Christians only had access to the OT (if they were lucky) and the gospel and the teachings of the Church (as formalised by the apostles) were made known by word of mouth. But I'm not going to get all that here. Suffice to say that I was once a Protestant - been there, done that.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:- 337 God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine "work", concluded by the "rest" of the seventh day.204 On the subject of creation, the sacred text teaches the truths revealed by God for our salvation,205 permitting us to "recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God."

I don't believe you. The Catholic Church is, in effect, the word of God. It exists before the NT did. The Church probably doesn't have a definite interpretation of the talking snake, because whether it's interpreted literally or not, I guess it doesn't matter. As for the "six days", the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states they are "figurative" (if memory serves). I can provide the exact wording, but it might some time.

As far as the Church's mission is concerned, such things are irrelevant. Catholics can believe the moon is made of cheese and the earth is flat, if they want to.

My criterion is the Church. It decides how Scripture is interpreted, not me.

I will rephrase my comment: Catholics are obliged to believe that the universe had a beginning.

No The Church's role is not to be a judge of science.

Brilliant idea! When an "accepted" science theory is replaced by a better one, then what? The Church will have to say, "Yeah, well, er ... about that ... we got that wrong ... but this new theory is a beauty!" Thankfully, the Church is not that stupid.

The author of Genesis (and countless readers after him) may well have believed that the "six days" of creation were literal, but science has confirmed that the "six days" in Genesis 1 are in fact, symbolic - just as the talking snake and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are probably symbolic. Science has confirmed also that the verse that got Galileo into trouble was symbolic. I believe the Genesis accounts of creation are a mixture of literal and symbolic - just as the book of Revelation is (which is the account of a vision).

Are you familiar with the concept of figurative/symbolic language? How do you know that the author was not describing a vision? And you're cherry-picking - do you really think a talking snake and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil were literal too? Have a gander at the last book of the New Testament - Revelation - and try and tell me that the author was being completely literal! Glad to see that you sincerely support freedom of speech

No it doesn't. They would all have understood a day as a length of time. It's not as if days varied in duration from day to day. They would also have understood that without the sun, there would be no days at all - yet the author says the sun wasn't created until Day 4. They would also have understood light as the sun, yet the author says light was created on Day 1 - three days before the sun was created. They would also have understood that snakes don't talk and that knowledge of good and evil doesn't grow on trees. In chapter 2 of Genesis there is a second creation account, which takes place in a "day" (not six days) - do you suppose the author might have noticed that the two accounts were different? Do you think they might be different because they are not literal? Do you think they might have understood the concept of symbolic language? Furthermore, the authors of Genesis didn't have to understand what they were writing down (and probably didn't), as they were supernaturally inspired to write whatever God wanted them to write.

The author of Genesis says the sun was created on the fourth day. This suggests he wasn't offering a literal description of creation. A tree of knowledge of good and bad, a talking snake, God resting on the seventh day, light being created before the sun ... do these oddities suggest a literal description? I don't think so.

Perhaps you're referring to the "six days" of creation - if so, the Catholic Church has never offered a definitive interpretation of the "six days" in Genesis 1, and has never obliged the faithful to accept that the "six days" are a literal six days or to accept any other interpretation of the "six days".

beecee seems to think there is no truth outside science. In that case, the meaning of life isn't worth discussing. If science is "the only truth", how can you claim, for example, that God is a "ridiculous myth", when science hasn't nothing to say on the matter? If science is "the only truth", no one can claim it's wrong to steal, murder, rape and pillage, because science has nothing to say on the matter.

In that case, the meaning of life doesn't matter, since science has nothing to say in that regard. If science is the only truth, where does science say "Science is the only truth"?

The difference is, pointless banal religious claims don't pretend to be science. Religious claims are usually based on faith; science is based on empirical evidence and the testing of theories - but someone forgot to tell evolutionists that. Their idea of "science" and "understanding" and "knowledge" is endless hypotheses that can't ever be tested. Which theist has derided all scientific knowledge? If this was meant to explain how an untestable theory qualifies as understanding, it failed. I know that. I was trying to make sense of beecee's quizzical comment. ... which just goes to show how little you know about my younger years. How so?

There is a "God doesn't exist" scientific theory? How so?

Some evolutionary explanations can be tested. But what I had in mind were the pointless, banal discussions that evolutionists indulge in and are found on scientic forums like this one. Eg, where did instincts come from? My point is, what is the point of evolutionary hypotheses that can't ever be tested? One may as well hypothesize about the colour of the Tooth Fairy's hair. Are you sure the God of the Bible is a ridiculous myth? Regarding abiogenesis - when humans manage to get inanimate matter to give rise to a viable life-form, wake me up.

Er, antibiotic resistance can be studied and tested using observed, repeatable experiments. It's called empirical science. On the other hand, an hypothesis about how feathers evolved, for example, is just pie-in-the-sky gibberish - nothing can be tested or learnt and no benefit can be gained.

Maybe, but fashions come and go. Pink never goes out fashion - in a thousand years time, girls will still like pink. How do you know females don't have a biological predilection for that colour? Think "babies" ... maybe

- When did I say there is no evidence? Evolution is the only explanation science has to account for the history of life on earth. If the first life-forms were microbes and billions of years life ends up at human beings, evolution is a perfectly reasonable science theory for what happened. But I don't believe the history of life is the result of purely natural forces - which helps to explain why evolutionary explanations for life's progression are often so lame and inadequate. - When it comes to evolution, "scientists make things up" all the time ... 99.9999999999999999999% of which can't be tested. So it's just worthless story-telling, not science. - An untestable theory is "understanding"? How does that work? You seem to be conflating a belief with knowledge, truth and fact. - How ironic that you mention "ignorance" ... you obviously know little about what the Catholic Church teaches. Catholics are not obliged to believe that man evolved from some kind of ape, or in any kind of evolution at all. They can believe the earth was created 6000 year ago if they want; or that the earth is flat and that the moon is made of cheese. As far as I know, the only scientific fact Catholics are obliged to accept is that the universe had a beginning. My point is, you could probably think of an evolutionary explanation for just about anything. But so what? Hypotheses that can't be tested are a pointless waste of time.

A chimp made it into space before any human did, so chimps appear be evolving very fast. They could overtake humans as the dominant species on earth soon