theresthisbook_kenham.gif

It would make things easier to stomach in the Bible, but then you have to do the same with the rest of it. Take the Flood, was the Flood a salt-water or fresh-water Flood? Depending on the one, you are going to have a lot of dead fish and I don't think Noah built an aquarium on the ark.

I think there are a lot of ways to interpret the seven days part of the creation story, but I also think that detail is pretty much the least important thing in that part of the Bible. The short summary of the story is that God made everything absolutely perfect on Earth, then put humans in there with just one rule. No eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that grew in the middle of the garden. People were tempted by the snake, the fruit, and the possibility of Godhood and ate it anyway. There are a couple of lessons here about human nature that are much more important than anything about how the universe was created, IMO. First, it stresses that given the choice between the two, people will desire personal Godhood over a perfect world. Adam and Eve had everything provided, immortality, no diseases, complete comfort, really everything a person could want. When the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit, he told her that she would become "like God", and it worked. The consequences of this aspiration to Godhood were disastrous! This still holds true today. Just look at any delusion tyrant who aspires to Godhood and ruins the world, or at least their share of it. Second, it shows that mankind will try to add things to God's word and impose them on other people. This one is subtle, but it's there. When the serpent asks Eve if God really said you must not eat from any tree in the garden, Eve's response is that they must not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, [i]nor even touch it[/i], or they will die. That's not what God told Adam! He just told Adam they couldn't eat from it, and Adam added the part about touching it. In this story, remember, God told Adam that before Eve was created. It doesn't say that God told her that, so she was probably going on what Adam said. He added that bit. The fact that Eve thought God said that probably gave the serpent an opening, because she could touch it and not die, and she would think that proved God wrong. This is the first example of people adding stuff to what God said and it making God look bad. For current examples, you could look at WBC. So there's these two great and accurate lessons about human nature and man's relationship with God and the idea of Godhood, but all anyone seems to focus on any more is whether or not the 7 days is literal. In my opinion, literal or not, that part is largely a back drop to some other teaching that's being ignored.

God also said killing is wrong.

No the Bible says they are 6 literal days and on the seventh he rested they are 24 hour days.

Anything that let's you interpret it in such a variety of ways isn't something you should try and interpret in the first place.

There are a lot of good posts on this thread, and I don't want to just mirror them, so let me add something: the bible was written for uneducated peasants. Not necessarily stupid people, but people with very little concept of science. Now try describing the Big Bang to them. You could try telling them about an infinitesimal point of mass exploding due to some quantum reasons, expanding outwards, creating planets and stars out of the entropy. I doubt that would work very well. Ancient Jews would write historical texts differently than "story" texts. They would denote this by showing population numbers, specific locations or events, or lists of names. We don't see that in Genesis until well after humanity has left the garden of eden. So am I telling you with certainty that genesis isn't exactly literal? No, because I have no way of proving that. But I am saying that for believers, it has no effect on salvation, and that it seems like the author did not intend to write a historical or scientific textbook.

I was just thinking about how Creationism makes no sense and about how there's no way to rationalize, explain, prove, recreate or test it. It's all based on Faith. Speaking of Faith, did you know it's definition is crazy close to that of Delusion. The more you know.

Interesting thought OP. But terribly convenient. There's nothing really and explicitly stating that is how and what happened. And are you telling me that God couldn't see that humans have a different perception of time than he does which is why he explained it to whoever like that? He could've clarified and there's really no logical reason why he shouldn't or couldn't.

Maybe the time frame reference and entire creation story for that matter was just simplified into an easy to understand story to describe a very complex event to a large varied group of people with limited understanding of how the universe works.

Obvious trolls? You mean people smarter than you?

Interesting thought. It would make sense since the Earth is (I'm not sure of the exact so please correct me) around 5 billion years old. A day to God could be a million or even a billion years. When God told whoever was writing the Bible at the time what to put, a day to God was an immense difference compared to what the writer thought.

I wasn't there. So I don't know.

It says 6 days

That's exactly what I think. I believe a single day represents several billion years.

The infallible word of god would have translated exactly as god intended. He meant a day.

[I] [/I] [b] [/b]