Perceptions of God, Creationism and Evolution

[TrueMacedonian]

That's what it means if you read it as a story book. What is so clever about God is, He designed it to shock the non believer. But once you are a believer, its not what it seems. Its hard to explain in a brief post and iv'e no craving to go into extremely long explanations......Well mabe i should have shut up if i had no intention in going into detail.

No I want to know what you really think about interpretting the bible.

[Bill77]

No I want to know what you really think about interpretting the bible.

I can't say for certain if the OT were actual events, but i also can't say they were not. It does not bother me either way. Its the message that is important in my eyes. I believe its still the word of God and events don't have to literally happen for it to be the word of god, there are morals to the stories (which now it might sound i am being contradictory) that is important. I am sure you have heard prikazni from your dedo which were not facts but had a meaning to it that will benefit you. I think its possible its the same thing God has done on this occasion.

Where as for the NT, i would think the events were more accurate (as accurate if not more than the events of Alexander since it was centuries before). The writers walked with Jesus and are witnesses, rather than something passed on to them. But i would say imho, Even the NT is designed to shock the non believer. But once you are a believer, its not what it seems. If you are a Christian its no longer hard hitting laws, but a somewhat lesser tone and called friendly reminders.

[Onur]

more scientists (historical) who accepted the Biblical account of creation

The fact is; this myth of creation is not biblical at all. It`s a ripoff from more ancient beliefs.

Just read this ancient Persian myth of creation written in between 13th to 6th century BC. This is a fact and an archeological evidence, not a conspiracy theory. Read and tell me if you find this story similar to your so-called biblical account;

ZOROASTRIAN CREATION MYTH
The Zoroastrian creation myth says that in the beginning, there was nothing in the world but Ahura Mazda (The God), the Wise Lord, who lived in the Endless Light. And the evil Evil Spirit Ahriman (The Satan), who lived in the Absolute Darkness. And between these realms was emptiness. One day, Ahura Mazda decided to make different creations. First he shaped the sky made of metal, shining and bright. Second, he made pure water. Third, he created the earth, flat and round with no mountains or valleys. Fourth he made the plants, moist with no thorns. Fifth, created animals, big and small. Then he created the First Man, called Gayomard, bright, tall, and handsome. Last he created fire and distributed it withing the creation. The Wise Lord ordered fire to serve mankind in preparing food and overcoming cold.

The Evil Spirit peeked out of his dark world to see all the amazing new creations. The Wise Lord called him and said: "Evil Spirit! Aid my creatures and give them praise so that you will be immortal". The Evil Spirit snarled: "Why should I aid your creatures? Why Should I praise them? I am more powerful!< I will destroy you and your creatures". Then he crawled back to the darkness to shape demons, witches, and monsters to attack the Endless Light.

The Wise Lord was All-Knowing. He knew what the Evil Spirit was doing, and he also knew would be a great battle with the Dark side. So the Wise Lord fashioned six spirit (archangels): The Holy Immortals, to guard His creations against the Endless Darkness. The Wise Lord shaped the Holy Immortals from his own soul, each giving His own nature.

Ahriman saw the Wise Lord's Holy Immortals and was enraged. "Ahura Mazda! I will destroy you and all your creations. You will never be victorious" he cried. So he, and his demons attacked God's creations one by one. They tried to destroy the water but they could only bring bitterness to it. They tried to destroy the Earth but they could only put mountains and valleys. They tried to wither the plants but they only grew horns. The Evil Spirit and his demons brought sadness against happiness, pain against pleasure, pollution against purification and death against life. They attacked Gayomard, the First Man, and gave him sickness and death.

The Evil Spirit thought he had destroyed the mankind and became victorious against the light, but he was ignorant and foolish. when Gayomard died, from his bones grew a rhubarb plant. After forty years, a man and a woman, Mashya and Mashyana (Adam and Eve), grew out of the plant. Mashya and Mashyana promised the Wise Lord that their children would help Him in His battle with the Evil Spirit, then gave birth to fifteen twins and every pair scattered around the world and became a race. Then each person followed the good thoughts, good deeds and good words. Each became the follower of the Wise Lord in His battle with the Evil Spirit.

http://www.read-legends-and-myths.co...tion-myth.html

AND most surprisingly, Persians invites Jews to the Babylon after 6-5th century BC, then "for some reason", Jews starts to write about the story of creation, the angels etc. and it becomes the story of creation in all Abrahamic bibles today!!!

I bet this story wasn't even created in 13th century BC for the first time but it`s maybe even more older than that, who knows!!! If Sumerians wrote about Noah in ~3500-2500 BC then why not this story?

[lavce pelagonski]

+1

Also, we surely don't need this type of division right now eating away at our national unity.


Lastly, are there not scientists who believe in God and evolution at the same time and how would you classify them? Atheists, whackos or something else?

Well after I left yous last night I cant believe how much writing has taken place I found it hard finding where my last post was.

As for Vojnik well Tom says he's not so he isnt.

I couldnt stop laughing when I read some of your comments LOL

[Vangelovski]

There are better critical thinkers then Richard he has a media fame built around him and is overly too critical of religion he also holds evolution as his bible and arwin as his God

On crackpot creationsits they are all essestially the same I can argue down every single one of them let alone a Cambridge great

Vangelovski is your line of thought based completly just on Faith

Zarni, if you want to "argue" me down, address some of the points I have raised rather than making a BS general statement.

[Vangelovski]

Onur, you've totally confused your facts with fiction and vice versa. You need to read some scholarly work and get off the conspiracy theory sites.

[indigen]

The fact is; this myth of creation is not biblical at all. It`s a ripoff from more ancient beliefs.

Just read this ancient Persian myth of creation written in between 13th to 6th century BC. This is a fact and an archeological evidence, not a conspiracy theory. Read and tell me if you find this story similar to your so-called biblical account;



AND most surprisingly, Persians invites Jews to the Babylon after 6-5th century BC, then "for some reason", Jews starts to write about the story of creation, the angels etc. and it becomes the story of creation in all Abrahamic bibles today!!!

I bet this story wasn't even created in 13th century BC for the first time but it`s maybe even more older than that, who knows!!! If Sumerians wrote about Noah in ~3500-2500 BC then why not this story?

Thanks Onur, I enjoyed reading this historical account of "Persian" creation myths/beliefs.

[indigen]

Well after I left yous last night I cant believe how much writing has taken place I found it hard finding where my last post was.

Only 4 pages more and thus it is not a big deal in comparison to what has happened in the past.

As for Vojnik well Tom says he's not so he isnt.

It was not really my belief that he was (unless he is a professional troll taking on different roles, which I am not aware that he is.) because the "OM", as far as I remember, was opposed to creationism.

I couldnt stop laughing when I read some of your comments LOL

I take it you mean "all" the comments and not mine in particular because I can't see what I said that would make you laugh.

You did not answer me the following question:
"Lastly, are there not scientists who believe in God and evolution at the same time and how would you classify them? Atheists, whackos or something else?"

[lavce pelagonski]

The Doctrine of the Orthodox Church: The Basic Doctrines
COUNCILS AND CONFESSIONS

All Orthodox credal formulas, liturgical texts, and doctrinal statements affirm the claim that the Orthodox Church has preserved the original apostolic faith, which was also expressed in the common Christian tradition of the first centuries. The Orthodox Church recognizes as ecumenical the seven councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (681), and Nicaea II (787) but considers that the decrees of several other later councils also reflect the same original faith (e.g., the councils of Constantinople that endorsed the theology of St. Gregory Palamas in the 14th century). Finally, it recognizes itself as the bearer of an uninterrupted living tradition of true Christianity that is expressed in its worship, in the lives of the saints, and in the faith of the whole people of God.

In the 17th century, as a counterpart to the various “confessions” of the Reformation, there appeared several “Orthodox confessions,” endorsed by local councils but, in fact, associated with individual authors (e.g., Metrophanes Critopoulos, 1625; Peter Mogila, 1638; Dostheos of Jerusalem, 1672). None of these confessions would be recognized today as having anything but historical importance. When expressing the beliefs of his church, the Orthodox theologian, rather than seeking literal conformity with any of these particular confessions, will rather look for consistency with Scripture and tradition, as it has been expressed in the ancient councils, the early Fathers, and the uninterrupted life of the liturgy. He will not shy away from new formulations if consistency and continuity of tradition are preserved.

What is particularly characteristic of this attitude toward the faith is the absence of any great concern for establishing external criteria of truth—a concern that has dominated Western Christian thought since the Middle Ages. Truth appears as a living experience accessible in the communion of the church and of which the Scriptures, the councils, and theology are the normal expressions. Even ecumenical councils, in the Orthodox perspective, need subsequent “reception” by the body of the church in order to be recognized as truly ecumenical. Ultimately, therefore, truth is viewed as its own criterion: there are signs that point to it, but none of these signs is a substitute for a free and personal experience of truth, which is made accessible in the sacramental fellowship of the church.

Because of this view of truth, the Orthodox have traditionally been reluctant to involve church authority in defining matters of faith with too much precision and detail. This reluctance is not due to relativism or indifference but rather to the belief that truth needs no definition to be the object of experience and that legitimate definition, when it occurs, should aim mainly at excluding error and not at pretending to reveal the truth itself that is believed to be ever present in the church.

GOD AND MAN

The development of the doctrines concerning the Trinity and the incarnation, as it took place during the first eight centuries of Christian history, was related to the concept of man’s participation in divine life.

The Greek Fathers of the church always implied that the phrase found in the biblical story of the creation of man (Gen. 1:26), according to “the image and likeness of God,” meant that man is not an autonomous being and that his ultimate nature is defined by his relation to God, his “prototype.” In paradise Adam and Eve were called to participate in God’s life and to find in him the natural growth of their humanity “from glory to glory.” To be “in God” is, therefore, the natural state of man. This doctrine is particularly important in connection with the Fathers’ view of human freedom. For theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa (4th century) and Maximus the Confessor (7th century) man is truly free only when he is in communion with God; otherwise he is only a slave to his body or to “the world,” over which, originally and by God’s command, he was destined to rule.

Thus, the concept of sin implies separation from God and the reduction of man to a separate and autonomous existence, in which he is deprived of both his natural glory and his freedom. He becomes an element subject to cosmic determinism, and the image of God is thus blurred within him.

Freedom in God, as enjoyed by Adam, implied the possibility of falling away from God. This is the unfortunate choice made by man, which led Adam to a subhuman and unnatural existence. The most unnatural aspect of his new state was death. In this perspective, “original sin” is understood not so much as a state of guilt inherited from Adam but as an unnatural condition of human life that ends in death. Mortality is what each man now inherits at his birth and this is what leads him to struggle for existence, to self-affirmation at the expense of others, and ultimately to subjection to the laws of animal life. The “prince of this world” (i.e., Satan), who is also the “murderer from the beginning,” has dominion over man. From this vicious circle of death and sin, man is understood to be liberated by the death and Resurrection of Christ, which is actualized in Baptism and the sacramental life in the church.

The general framework of this understanding of the God-man relationship is clearly different from the view that became dominant in the Christian West—i.e., the view that conceived of “nature” as distinct from “grace” and that understood original sin as an inherited guilt rather than as a deprivation of freedom. In the East, man is regarded as fully man when he participates in God; in the West, man’s nature is believed to be autonomous, sin is viewed as a punishable crime, and grace is understood to grant forgiveness. Hence, in the West, the aim of the Christian is justification, but in the East, it is rather communion with God and deification. In the West, the church is viewed in terms of mediation (for the bestowing of grace) and authority (for guaranteeing security in doctrine); in the East, the church is regarded as a communion in which God and man meet once again and a personal experience of divine life becomes possible.

CHRIST

The Orthodox Church is formally committed to the Christology (doctrine of Christ) that was defined by the councils of the first eight centuries. Together with the Latin Church of the West, it has rejected Arianism (a belief in the subordination of the Son to the Father) at Nicaea (325), Nestorianism (a belief that stresses the independence of the divine and human natures of Christ) at Ephesus (431), and Monophysitism (a belief that Christ had only one divine nature) at Chalcedon (451). The Eastern and Western churches still formally share the tradition of subsequent Christological developments, even though the famous formula of Chalcedon, “one person in two natures,” is given different emphases in the East and West. The stress on Christ’s identity with the preexistent Son of God, the Logos (Word) of the Gospel According to John, characterizes Orthodox Christology. On Byzantine icons, around the face of Jesus, the Greek letters ” —the equivalent of the Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH, the name of God in the Old Testament—are often depicted. Jesus is thus always seen in his divine identity. Similarly, the liturgy consistently addresses the Virgin Mary as Theotokos (the “one who gave birth to God”), and this term, formally admitted as a criterion of orthodoxy at Ephesus, is actually the only “Mariological” (doctrine of Mary) dogma accepted in the Orthodox Church. It reflects the doctrine of Christ’s unique divine Person, and Mary is thus venerated only because she is his mother “according to the flesh.”

This emphasis on the personal divine identity of Christ, based on the doctrine of St. Cyril of Alexandria (5th century), does not imply the denial of his humanity. The anthropology (doctrine of man) of the Eastern Fathers does not view man as an autonomous being but rather implies that communion with God makes man fully human. Thus the human nature of Jesus Christ, fully assumed by the divine Word, is indeed the “new Adam” in whom the whole of humanity receives again its original glory. Christ’s humanity is fully “ours”; it possessed all the characteristics of the human being—”each nature (of Christ) acts according to its properties,” Chalcedon proclaimed, following Pope Leo—without separating itself from the divine Word. Thus, in death itself—for Jesus’ death was indeed a fully human death—the Son of God was the “subject” of the Passion. The theopaschite formula (“God suffered in the flesh”) became, together with the Theotokos formula, a standard of orthodoxy in the Eastern Church, especially after the second Council of Constantinople (553). It implied that Christ’s humanity was indeed real not only in itself but also for God, since it brought him to death on the cross, and that the salvation and redemption of humanity can be accomplished by God alone—hence the necessity for him to condescend to death, which held humanity captive.

This theology of redemption and salvation is best expressed in the Byzantine liturgical hymns of Holy Week and Easter: Christ is the one who “tramples down death by death,” and, on the evening of Good Friday, the hymns already exalt his victory. Salvation is conceived not in terms of satisfaction of divine justice, through paying the debt for the sin of Adam—as the medieval West understood it—but in terms of uniting the human and the divine with the divine overcoming human mortality and weakness and, finally, exalting man to divine life.

What Christ accomplished once and for all must be appropriated freely by those who are “in Christ”; their goal is “deification,” which does not mean dehumanization but the exaltation of man to the dignity prepared for him at creation. Such feasts as the Transfiguration or the Ascension are extremely popular in the East precisely because they celebrate humanity glorified in Christ—a glorification that anticipates the coming of the Kingdom of God, when God will be “all in all.”

Participation in the already deified humanity of Christ is the true goal of Christian life, and it is accomplished through the Holy Spirit.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost “called all men into unity,” according to the Byzantine liturgical hymn of the day; into this new unity, which St. Paul called the “body of Christ,” each individual Christian enters through Baptism and “chrismation” (the Eastern form of the Western “confirmation”) when the priest anoints him saying “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This gift, however, requires man’s free response. Orthodox saints such as Seraphim of Sarov (died 1833) described the entire content of Christian life as a “collection of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is thus conceived as the main agent of man’s restoration to his original natural state through Communion in Christ’s body. This role of the Spirit is reflected, very richly, in a variety of liturgical and sacramental acts. Every act of worship usually starts with a prayer addressed to the Spirit, and all major sacraments begin with an invocation to the Spirit. The eucharistic liturgies of the East attribute the ultimate mystery of Christ’s Presence to a descent of the Spirit upon the worshipping congregation and upon the eucharistic bread and wine. The significance of this invocation (in Greek epiklesis) was violently debated between Greek and Latin Christians in the Middle Ages because the Roman canon of the mass lacked any reference to the Spirit and was thus considered as deficient by the Orthodox Greeks.

Since the Council of Constantinople (381), which condemned the Pneumatomachians (“fighters against the Spirit”), no one in the Orthodox East has ever denied that the Spirit is not only a “gift” but also the giver—i.e., that he is the third Person of the holy Trinity. The Greek Fathers saw in Gen. 1:2 a reference to the Spirit’s cooperation in the divine act of creation; the Spirit was also viewed as active in the “new creation” that occurred in the womb of the Virgin Mary when she became the mother of Christ (Luke 1:35); and finally, Pentecost was understood to be an anticipation of the “last days” (Acts 2:17) when, at the end of history, a universal communion with God will be achieved. Thus, all the decisive acts of God are accomplished “by the Father in the Son, through the Holy Spirit.”

THE HOLY TRINITY

By the 4th century a polarity developed between the Eastern and Western Christians in their respective understandings of the Trinity. In the West God was understood primarily in terms of one essence (the Trinity of Persons being conceived as an irrational truth found in revelation); in the East the tri-personality of God was understood as the primary fact of Christian experience. For most of the Greek Fathers, it was not the Trinity that needed theological proof but rather God’s essential unity. The Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea) were even accused of being tri-theists because of the personalistic emphasis of their conception of God as one essence in three hypostases (the Greek term hypostasis was the equivalent of the Latin substantia and designated a concrete reality). For Greek theologians, this terminology was intended to designate the concrete New Testamental revelation of the Son and the Spirit, as distinct from the Father.

Modern Orthodox theologians tend to emphasize this personalistic approach to God; they claim that they discover in it the original biblical personalism, unadulterated in its content by later philosophical speculation.

Polarization of the Eastern and the Western concepts of the Trinity is at the root of the Filioque dispute. The Latin word Filioque (“and from the Son”) was added to the Nicene Creed in Spain in the 6th century. By affirming that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only “from the Father” (as the original creed proclaimed) but also “from the Son,” the Spanish councils intended to condemn Arianism by reaffirming the Son’s divinity. Later, however, the addition became an anti-Greek battle cry, especially after Charlemagne (9th century) made his claim to rule the revived Roman Empire. The addition was finally accepted in Rome under German pressure. It found justification in the framework of Western conceptions of the Trinity; the Father and the Son were viewed as one God in the act of “spiration” of the Spirit.

The Byzantine theologians opposed the addition, first on the ground that the Western Church had no right to change the text of an ecumenical creed unilaterally and, second, because the Filioque clause implied the reduction of the divine persons to mere relations (“the Father and the Son are two in relation to each other, but one in relation to the Spirit”). For the Greeks the Father alone is the origin of both the Son and the Spirit. Patriarch Photius (9th century) was the first Orthodox theologian to explicitly spell out the Greek opposition to the Filioque concept, but the debate continued throughout the Middle Ages.

THE TRANSCENDENCE OF GOD

An important element in the Eastern Christian understanding of God is the notion that God, in his essence, is totally transcendent and unknowable and that, strictly speaking, God can only be designated by negative attributes: it is possible to say what God is not, but it is impossible to say what he is.

A purely negative, or “apophatic” theology—the only one applicable to the essence of God in the Orthodox view—does not lead to agnosticism, however, because God reveals himself personally—as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and also in his acts, or “energies.” Thus, true knowledge of God always includes three elements: religious awe; personal encounter; and participation in the acts, or energies, which God freely bestows on creation.

This conception of God is connected with the personalistic understanding of the Trinity. It also led to the official confirmation by the Orthodox Church of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, the leader of Byzantine hesychasts (monks devoted to divine quietness through prayer), at the councils of 1341 and 1351 in Constantinople. The councils confirmed a real distinction in God, between the unknowable essence and the acts, or “energies,” which make possible a real communion with God. The deification of man, realized in Christ once and for all, is thus accomplished by a communion of divine energy with humanity in Christ’s glorified manhood.

http://www.stprohor.org.au/the-doctrine-of-the-orthodox-church-the-basic-doctrines/

[lavce pelagonski]

The Doctrine of the Orthodox Church: The Basic Doctrines
COUNCILS AND CONFESSIONS

All Orthodox credal formulas, liturgical texts, and doctrinal statements affirm the claim that the Orthodox Church has preserved the original apostolic faith, which was also expressed in the common Christian tradition of the first centuries. The Orthodox Church recognizes as ecumenical the seven councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (681), and Nicaea II (787) but considers that the decrees of several other later councils also reflect the same original faith (e.g., the councils of Constantinople that endorsed the theology of St. Gregory Palamas in the 14th century). Finally, it recognizes itself as the bearer of an uninterrupted living tradition of true Christianity that is expressed in its worship, in the lives of the saints, and in the faith of the whole people of God.

In the 17th century, as a counterpart to the various “confessions” of the Reformation, there appeared several “Orthodox confessions,” endorsed by local councils but, in fact, associated with individual authors (e.g., Metrophanes Critopoulos, 1625; Peter Mogila, 1638; Dostheos of Jerusalem, 1672). None of these confessions would be recognized today as having anything but historical importance. When expressing the beliefs of his church, the Orthodox theologian, rather than seeking literal conformity with any of these particular confessions, will rather look for consistency with Scripture and tradition, as it has been expressed in the ancient councils, the early Fathers, and the uninterrupted life of the liturgy. He will not shy away from new formulations if consistency and continuity of tradition are preserved.

What is particularly characteristic of this attitude toward the faith is the absence of any great concern for establishing external criteria of truth—a concern that has dominated Western Christian thought since the Middle Ages. Truth appears as a living experience accessible in the communion of the church and of which the Scriptures, the councils, and theology are the normal expressions. Even ecumenical councils, in the Orthodox perspective, need subsequent “reception” by the body of the church in order to be recognized as truly ecumenical. Ultimately, therefore, truth is viewed as its own criterion: there are signs that point to it, but none of these signs is a substitute for a free and personal experience of truth, which is made accessible in the sacramental fellowship of the church.

Because of this view of truth, the Orthodox have traditionally been reluctant to involve church authority in defining matters of faith with too much precision and detail. This reluctance is not due to relativism or indifference but rather to the belief that truth needs no definition to be the object of experience and that legitimate definition, when it occurs, should aim mainly at excluding error and not at pretending to reveal the truth itself that is believed to be ever present in the church.

GOD AND MAN

The development of the doctrines concerning the Trinity and the incarnation, as it took place during the first eight centuries of Christian history, was related to the concept of man’s participation in divine life.

The Greek Fathers of the church always implied that the phrase found in the biblical story of the creation of man (Gen. 1:26), according to “the image and likeness of God,” meant that man is not an autonomous being and that his ultimate nature is defined by his relation to God, his “prototype.” In paradise Adam and Eve were called to participate in God’s life and to find in him the natural growth of their humanity “from glory to glory.” To be “in God” is, therefore, the natural state of man. This doctrine is particularly important in connection with the Fathers’ view of human freedom. For theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa (4th century) and Maximus the Confessor (7th century) man is truly free only when he is in communion with God; otherwise he is only a slave to his body or to “the world,” over which, originally and by God’s command, he was destined to rule.

Thus, the concept of sin implies separation from God and the reduction of man to a separate and autonomous existence, in which he is deprived of both his natural glory and his freedom. He becomes an element subject to cosmic determinism, and the image of God is thus blurred within him.

Freedom in God, as enjoyed by Adam, implied the possibility of falling away from God. This is the unfortunate choice made by man, which led Adam to a subhuman and unnatural existence. The most unnatural aspect of his new state was death. In this perspective, “original sin” is understood not so much as a state of guilt inherited from Adam but as an unnatural condition of human life that ends in death. Mortality is what each man now inherits at his birth and this is what leads him to struggle for existence, to self-affirmation at the expense of others, and ultimately to subjection to the laws of animal life. The “prince of this world” (i.e., Satan), who is also the “murderer from the beginning,” has dominion over man. From this vicious circle of death and sin, man is understood to be liberated by the death and Resurrection of Christ, which is actualized in Baptism and the sacramental life in the church.

The general framework of this understanding of the God-man relationship is clearly different from the view that became dominant in the Christian West—i.e., the view that conceived of “nature” as distinct from “grace” and that understood original sin as an inherited guilt rather than as a deprivation of freedom. In the East, man is regarded as fully man when he participates in God; in the West, man’s nature is believed to be autonomous, sin is viewed as a punishable crime, and grace is understood to grant forgiveness. Hence, in the West, the aim of the Christian is justification, but in the East, it is rather communion with God and deification. In the West, the church is viewed in terms of mediation (for the bestowing of grace) and authority (for guaranteeing security in doctrine); in the East, the church is regarded as a communion in which God and man meet once again and a personal experience of divine life becomes possible.

CHRIST

The Orthodox Church is formally committed to the Christology (doctrine of Christ) that was defined by the councils of the first eight centuries. Together with the Latin Church of the West, it has rejected Arianism (a belief in the subordination of the Son to the Father) at Nicaea (325), Nestorianism (a belief that stresses the independence of the divine and human natures of Christ) at Ephesus (431), and Monophysitism (a belief that Christ had only one divine nature) at Chalcedon (451). The Eastern and Western churches still formally share the tradition of subsequent Christological developments, even though the famous formula of Chalcedon, “one person in two natures,” is given different emphases in the East and West. The stress on Christ’s identity with the preexistent Son of God, the Logos (Word) of the Gospel According to John, characterizes Orthodox Christology. On Byzantine icons, around the face of Jesus, the Greek letters ” —the equivalent of the Jewish Tetragrammaton YHWH, the name of God in the Old Testament—are often depicted. Jesus is thus always seen in his divine identity. Similarly, the liturgy consistently addresses the Virgin Mary as Theotokos (the “one who gave birth to God”), and this term, formally admitted as a criterion of orthodoxy at Ephesus, is actually the only “Mariological” (doctrine of Mary) dogma accepted in the Orthodox Church. It reflects the doctrine of Christ’s unique divine Person, and Mary is thus venerated only because she is his mother “according to the flesh.”

This emphasis on the personal divine identity of Christ, based on the doctrine of St. Cyril of Alexandria (5th century), does not imply the denial of his humanity. The anthropology (doctrine of man) of the Eastern Fathers does not view man as an autonomous being but rather implies that communion with God makes man fully human. Thus the human nature of Jesus Christ, fully assumed by the divine Word, is indeed the “new Adam” in whom the whole of humanity receives again its original glory. Christ’s humanity is fully “ours”; it possessed all the characteristics of the human being—”each nature (of Christ) acts according to its properties,” Chalcedon proclaimed, following Pope Leo—without separating itself from the divine Word. Thus, in death itself—for Jesus’ death was indeed a fully human death—the Son of God was the “subject” of the Passion. The theopaschite formula (“God suffered in the flesh”) became, together with the Theotokos formula, a standard of orthodoxy in the Eastern Church, especially after the second Council of Constantinople (553). It implied that Christ’s humanity was indeed real not only in itself but also for God, since it brought him to death on the cross, and that the salvation and redemption of humanity can be accomplished by God alone—hence the necessity for him to condescend to death, which held humanity captive.

This theology of redemption and salvation is best expressed in the Byzantine liturgical hymns of Holy Week and Easter: Christ is the one who “tramples down death by death,” and, on the evening of Good Friday, the hymns already exalt his victory. Salvation is conceived not in terms of satisfaction of divine justice, through paying the debt for the sin of Adam—as the medieval West understood it—but in terms of uniting the human and the divine with the divine overcoming human mortality and weakness and, finally, exalting man to divine life.

What Christ accomplished once and for all must be appropriated freely by those who are “in Christ”; their goal is “deification,” which does not mean dehumanization but the exaltation of man to the dignity prepared for him at creation. Such feasts as the Transfiguration or the Ascension are extremely popular in the East precisely because they celebrate humanity glorified in Christ—a glorification that anticipates the coming of the Kingdom of God, when God will be “all in all.”

Participation in the already deified humanity of Christ is the true goal of Christian life, and it is accomplished through the Holy Spirit.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost “called all men into unity,” according to the Byzantine liturgical hymn of the day; into this new unity, which St. Paul called the “body of Christ,” each individual Christian enters through Baptism and “chrismation” (the Eastern form of the Western “confirmation”) when the priest anoints him saying “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This gift, however, requires man’s free response. Orthodox saints such as Seraphim of Sarov (died 1833) described the entire content of Christian life as a “collection of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is thus conceived as the main agent of man’s restoration to his original natural state through Communion in Christ’s body. This role of the Spirit is reflected, very richly, in a variety of liturgical and sacramental acts. Every act of worship usually starts with a prayer addressed to the Spirit, and all major sacraments begin with an invocation to the Spirit. The eucharistic liturgies of the East attribute the ultimate mystery of Christ’s Presence to a descent of the Spirit upon the worshipping congregation and upon the eucharistic bread and wine. The significance of this invocation (in Greek epiklesis) was violently debated between Greek and Latin Christians in the Middle Ages because the Roman canon of the mass lacked any reference to the Spirit and was thus considered as deficient by the Orthodox Greeks.

Since the Council of Constantinople (381), which condemned the Pneumatomachians (“fighters against the Spirit”), no one in the Orthodox East has ever denied that the Spirit is not only a “gift” but also the giver—i.e., that he is the third Person of the holy Trinity. The Greek Fathers saw in Gen. 1:2 a reference to the Spirit’s cooperation in the divine act of creation; the Spirit was also viewed as active in the “new creation” that occurred in the womb of the Virgin Mary when she became the mother of Christ (Luke 1:35); and finally, Pentecost was understood to be an anticipation of the “last days” (Acts 2:17) when, at the end of history, a universal communion with God will be achieved. Thus, all the decisive acts of God are accomplished “by the Father in the Son, through the Holy Spirit.”

THE HOLY TRINITY

By the 4th century a polarity developed between the Eastern and Western Christians in their respective understandings of the Trinity. In the West God was understood primarily in terms of one essence (the Trinity of Persons being conceived as an irrational truth found in revelation); in the East the tri-personality of God was understood as the primary fact of Christian experience. For most of the Greek Fathers, it was not the Trinity that needed theological proof but rather God’s essential unity. The Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea) were even accused of being tri-theists because of the personalistic emphasis of their conception of God as one essence in three hypostases (the Greek term hypostasis was the equivalent of the Latin substantia and designated a concrete reality). For Greek theologians, this terminology was intended to designate the concrete New Testamental revelation of the Son and the Spirit, as distinct from the Father.

Modern Orthodox theologians tend to emphasize this personalistic approach to God; they claim that they discover in it the original biblical personalism, unadulterated in its content by later philosophical speculation.

Polarization of the Eastern and the Western concepts of the Trinity is at the root of the Filioque dispute. The Latin word Filioque (“and from the Son”) was added to the Nicene Creed in Spain in the 6th century. By affirming that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only “from the Father” (as the original creed proclaimed) but also “from the Son,” the Spanish councils intended to condemn Arianism by reaffirming the Son’s divinity. Later, however, the addition became an anti-Greek battle cry, especially after Charlemagne (9th century) made his claim to rule the revived Roman Empire. The addition was finally accepted in Rome under German pressure. It found justification in the framework of Western conceptions of the Trinity; the Father and the Son were viewed as one God in the act of “spiration” of the Spirit.

The Byzantine theologians opposed the addition, first on the ground that the Western Church had no right to change the text of an ecumenical creed unilaterally and, second, because the Filioque clause implied the reduction of the divine persons to mere relations (“the Father and the Son are two in relation to each other, but one in relation to the Spirit”). For the Greeks the Father alone is the origin of both the Son and the Spirit. Patriarch Photius (9th century) was the first Orthodox theologian to explicitly spell out the Greek opposition to the Filioque concept, but the debate continued throughout the Middle Ages.

THE TRANSCENDENCE OF GOD

An important element in the Eastern Christian understanding of God is the notion that God, in his essence, is totally transcendent and unknowable and that, strictly speaking, God can only be designated by negative attributes: it is possible to say what God is not, but it is impossible to say what he is.

A purely negative, or “apophatic” theology—the only one applicable to the essence of God in the Orthodox view—does not lead to agnosticism, however, because God reveals himself personally—as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and also in his acts, or “energies.” Thus, true knowledge of God always includes three elements: religious awe; personal encounter; and participation in the acts, or energies, which God freely bestows on creation.

This conception of God is connected with the personalistic understanding of the Trinity. It also led to the official confirmation by the Orthodox Church of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, the leader of Byzantine hesychasts (monks devoted to divine quietness through prayer), at the councils of 1341 and 1351 in Constantinople. The councils confirmed a real distinction in God, between the unknowable essence and the acts, or “energies,” which make possible a real communion with God. The deification of man, realized in Christ once and for all, is thus accomplished by a communion of divine energy with humanity in Christ’s glorified manhood.

http://www.stprohor.org.au/the-doctrine-of-the-orthodox-church-the-basic-doctrines/

[Vangelovski]

Some stuff for consideration:

Evidence for a Young World

by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.

Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers listed below in bold print (usually in the millions of years) are often maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the biblical age (6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus, the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the biblical time scale. Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with the old-age view only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a recent creation.

1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called "density waves."1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the "Whirlpool" galaxy, M51.2

2. Too few supernova remnants.
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3

3. Comets disintegrate too quickly.
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.
Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.

5. Not enough sodium in the sea.
Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.10 Calculations11 for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.

6. The earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast. Electrical The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15

7. Many strata are too tightly bent.
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.16

8. Biological material decays too fast.

Natural radioactivity, mutations, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material rapidly. Measurements of the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age of "mitochondrial Eve" from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years.17 DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from fossils allegedly much older: Neandertal bones, insects in amber, and even from dinosaur fossils.18 Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old apparently have been revived with no DNA damage.19 Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts.20

9. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic "ages" to a few years. Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.21 "Squashed" Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale.22 "Orphan" Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply accelerated nuclear decay and very rapid formation of associated minerals.23,24

10. Too much helium in minerals.
Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.25 Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newly-measured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.26 This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously.

11. Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.

With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world's best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon.27 These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old.

12. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.
Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began,28 during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.29 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas.

13. Agriculture is too recent.
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.29 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in item 12 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Flood, if at all.31

14. History is too short.
According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.30 Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The biblical time scale is much more likely.31



References

1. Scheffler, H. and Elsasser, H., Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp. 352-353, 401-413.
2. D. Zaritsky, H-W. Rix, and M. Rieke, Inner spiral structure of the galaxy M51, Nature 364:313-315 (July 22, 1993).
3. Davies, K., Distribution of supernova remnants in the galaxy, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1994), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 175-184, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
4. Steidl, P. F., Planets, comets, and asteroids, Design and Origins in Astronomy, pp. 73-106, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983), order from http://www.creationresearch.org/.
5. Whipple, F. L., Background of modern comet theory, Nature 263:15-19 (2 September 1976). Levison, H. F. et al. See also: The mass disruption of Oort Cloud comets, Science 296:2212-2215 (21 June 2002).
6. Milliman, John D. and James P. M. Syvitski, Geomorphic/tectonic control of sediment discharge to the ocean: the importance of small mountainous rivers, The Journal of Geology, vol. 100, pp. 525-544 (1992).
7. Hay, W. W., et al., Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of sediment subduction, Journal of Geophysical Research, 93(B12):14,933-14,940 (10 December 1988).
8. Meybeck, M., Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans, Revue de Géologie Dynamique et de Géographie Physique 21(3):215 (1979).
9. Sayles, F. L. and P. C. Mangelsdorf, Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 43:767-779 (1979).
10. Austin, S. A. and D. R. Humphreys, The sea's missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 17-33, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
11. Nevins, S., [Austin, S. A.], Evolution: the oceans say no!, Impact No. 8 (Nov. 1973) Institute for Creation Research.
12. Humphreys, D. R., The earth's magnetic field is still losing energy, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 39(1):3-13, June 2002. http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/art
    icles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm.
13. Humphreys, D. R., Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis flood, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 113-126, out of print but contact http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm for help in locating copies.
14. Coe, R. S., M. Prévot, and P. Camps, New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal, Nature 374:687-92 (20 April 1995).
15. Humphreys, D. R., Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the flood, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 129-142, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.
16. Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 3-15, out of print, contact http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm for help in locating copies.
17. Gibbons A., Calibrating the mitochondrial clock, Science 279:28-29 (2 Jan-uary 1998).
18. Cherfas, J., Ancient DNA: still busy after death, Science 253:1354-1356 (20 September 1991). Cano, R. J., H. N. Poinar, N. J. Pieniazek, A. Acra, and G. O. Poinar, Jr. Amplification and sequencing of DNA from a 120-135-million-year-old weevil, Nature 363:536-8 (10 June 1993). Krings, M., A. Stone, R. W. Schmitz, H. Krainitzki, M. Stoneking, and S. Pääbo, Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans, Cell 90:19-30 (Jul 11, 1997). Lindahl, T, Unlocking nature's ancient secrets, Nature 413:358-359 (27 September 2001).
19. Vreeland, R. H.,W. D. Rosenzweig, and D. W. Powers, Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal, Nature 407:897-900 (19 October 2000).
20. Schweitzer, M., J. L. Wittmeyer, J. R. Horner, and J. K. Toporski, Soft-Tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex, Science 207:1952-1955 (25 March 2005).
21. Gentry, R. V., Radioactive halos, Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23:347-362 (1973).
22. Gentry, R. V. , W. H. Christie, D. H. Smith, J. F. Emery, S. A. Reynolds, R. Walker, S. S. Christy, and P. A. Gentry, Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification, Science 194:315-318 (15 October 1976).
23. Gentry, R. V., Radiohalos in a radiochronological and cosmological perspective, Science 184:62-66 (5 April 1974).
24. Snelling, A. A. and M. H. Armitage, Radiohalos—a tale of three granitic plutons, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (2003), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 243-267, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm. Also archived on the ICR website at ICCRADIOHALOS-AASandMA.pdf.
25. Gentry, R. V., G. L. Glish, and E. H. McBay, Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste containment, Geophysical Research Letters 9(10):1129-1130 (October 1982).
26. Humphreys, D. R, et al., Helium diffusion age of 6,000 years supports accelerated nuclear decay, Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(1):1-16 (June 2004). See archived article on following page of the CRS website: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/art
    icles/41/41_1/Helium.htm.
27. Baumgardner, J. R., et al., Measurable 14C in fossilized organic materials: confirming the young earth creation-flood model, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (2003), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 127-142. Archived at http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC
    _Baumgardner.pdf. See poster presented to American Geophysical Union, Dec. 2003, AGUC-14_Poster_Baumgardner.pdf.
28. McDougall, I., F. H. Brown, and J. G. Fleagle, Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia, Nature 433(7027):733-736 (17 February 2005).
29. Deevey, E. S., The human population, Scientific American 203:194-204 (September 1960).
30. Marshack, A., Exploring the mind of Ice Age man, National Geographic 147:64-89 (January 1975).
31. Dritt, J. O., Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in evolutionary timetables, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 73-78, order from http://www.icc03.org/proceedings.htm.

Additional Resources for items 9-11.

• DeYoung, D., Thousands ... Not Billions, Master Books (2005) Green Forest, AR.
• Vardiman, L, Snelling, A. A., and Chaffin E. F., editors, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. II, Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society (2005) El Cajon, CA and Chino Valley, AZ. (Technical).

[lavce pelagonski]

You did not answer me the following question:
"Lastly, are there not scientists who believe in God and evolution at the same time and how would you classify them? Atheists, whackos or something else?"

No not your posts

There may be and their classification is what they put on themselves. Even Atheists think that their may be a God or Gods out their. Science was apart of the church until whackos started messing around with stuff they shouldnt have, I dont think God created monkeys and then waited until we evolved into humans.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I have changed the title of this thread to read Perceptions of God, Creationism and Evolution.

Look at all the archaelogical diggings in Isreal there has been proof found for many stories...........

I have never denied that. But that still won't explain a number of other mythical 'stories'.

How do you know that Dinosaurs for instance ever roamed the Earth how do you know that the fossils and skeletal remains weren't placed by God to test man? Evolution relies on assumptions. Don't you agree? If not, why?

I believe this silly question which is unworthy of a serious answer has already been addressed.

Also TM I am waiting for you to change your avatar you hipocrit.

You don't make such demands of people on this forum. If you want people to start taking you seriously then tone down the arrogance and stop being confrontational.

I think you have to believe it all as there does not appear to be room for picking and choosing your favourite bits.

I think it comes down to a matter of perception based on logical interpretation. That doesn't necessarily mean everybody will come to the same conclusion. In my opinion, I can be accused of not being a Christian fundamentalist, but I don't believe you have to be a fundamentalist to be a Christian.

The Vangelovski guy who thinks the world is created in 5500 BC censors me by deleting my posts, so i wont answer.

You've posted subsequent to that. Please answer the question I posed to you earlier. For somebody that claims not to be a Muslim and who seems to be constantly harping on about Christianity, you express little criticism of Islam, of Muhammed, etc. Are they not worthy of your criticism?

The fact is; this myth of creation is not biblical at all. It`s a ripoff from more ancient beliefs.

The above quote, with terminology such as 'rip off' (like there was a copyright in the first place, or that the Persians didn't get some of their stories from elsewhere also) basically relegates biblical persons of the past as some sort of scam artists. In my opinion, that sounds almost as stupid as the suggestion that God placed dinosaur bones in the ground. Try and be a little less condescending, if you're unable to do that, then be as equally condescending towards Islam, if you truly want to show your objectivity.

Creation refers to the creation of the entire universe, not just the earth, so you can add anything you want to that 5500BC date.

Are you suggesting the date could be earlier, or that "let there be light" and the creation of life are all part of the same event in the same period of time?

You can call it a mythical story, but you would also have to call evolution and everything else a mythical story as well because we cannot conclusively prove anything, not even our own existence.

We can prove our existence because we are living beings, we just cannot prove the true origin of our existence, which results in some finding answers through devout faith, and others, more recently, through logical interpretation of history, archaeology, etc - so far as logic allows given that it's basis is generally factual evidence. However, one thing that needs to be accepted is that our ability as humans to investigate, discover and analyse such matters is markedly better than it was 2,000 years ago.

Being a Macedonian may not require you to believe in a young earth, but it does require you to believe in the existence of nations. Can you conclusively prove that nations do exist?

That is not the same thing. When I interact with an Italian or a Turk, I know they belong to their respective nations and not to mine. Now, we can argue about how nations are defined according to both general and fringe interpretations, but the fact of their existence cannot be disputed. The assertion that earth did not exist prior to 5500BC can convincingly be argued against. But if one is not open to other suggestions, then it becomes rather a moot point.

Further, Christianity is a specific set of beliefs that one either accepts or doesn't. Why would you want to label yourself as a Christian when you don't necessarily believe in what it means to be a Christian?

Can you explain what exactly are these specific set of beliefs, and how they are put into practice in everyday life? What makes you more of a Christian than me?

But for me personally, the most compelling reason is that something cannot come into existence out of nothing.

That is almost like saying certainty is borne of uncertainty, it really isn't that compelling of an argument in favour of creationism - but as an argument, it is more effective when used against the evolution theory.

[vojnik]

SoM the only reason I have been so confrontational with some members of this forum is the failure to read posts properly I don't know how many times I stated that the Dinosaur question I imposed was to prove a point that evolution like the dinosaur statement from above are absurd and have no evidence what so ever. I do not believe in the above statement it was a bid to express how stupid this theory of evolution sounds. You like others on the forum have made the mistake of not reading properly and making it out as if I support the above statement that I actually believe that. Read through the thread one what I write then make comments please. I don't want to have to keep repeating myself to people.

I don't see what was wrong with asking TM to change his Avatar to be honest, why would you use the sign of the cross if you aren't a christian and don't believe in what it stands for. That is like me as a christian using the sword of Muhamed as my avatar.

[Risto the Great]

I think it comes down to a matter of perception based on logical interpretation. That doesn't necessarily mean everybody will come to the same conclusion. In my opinion, I can be accused of not being a Christian fundamentalist, but I don't believe you have to be a fundamentalist to be a Christian.

I was not suggesting you need to have the same interpretation. Otherwise there would be no jobs for priests and internet forums!