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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).[/quote]

Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
[/quote]

John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).

[quote]“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.” [/quote]

For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly [i]how[/i] God created the earth, but rather about [i]why[/i] God did it and [i]that[/i] he made it work.

[quote]“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.” [/quote]

[quote]“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.” [/quote]
(https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-1-as-Ancient-Cosmology/dp/1575063840)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Walton[/quote]

Creation stories are a man made construct to provide meaning and sense. They've been around since the first humans invented storytelling.

And, thats it.  They're just stories. Made up ones. [/quote]

You provided a statement of your own belief, with no proof. It's valid for you to have your own beliefs, but has no impact on the correctness of anyone else's.[/quote]

Do you have proof that the Bible's story of creation is correct?  My belief is based on what we know about science -- which is common knowledge, as least among educated people. [/quote]

If you don't understand that trying to use science to disprove (or prove!) the existence of a diety is a category error after all the times it's been carefully explained here, I don't know what to tell you.

I am actually agnostic as to the how of the universe being created. Modern science tells us one story - a good one based on good evidence - but parts of it will probably be eventually overturned as our scientific knowledge expands.

That has zero, and I do mean zero, impact on my belief in God and the Bible. As shown in the quotes I pulled above, there are ways to have a very high view of the authority of the Christian Scriptures and believe that harmonizes just fine with modern science.

And despite the Ken Ham's of this world, there are plenty of Christians out there who believe this way. There are even more - probably the majority these days - somewhere in the middle between an evolutionary view of creation and a literal 7 day interpretation.

https://biologos.org/common-questions[/quote]

Who's trying to prove or disprove a dirty?  The poster said to prove the Bible was true.

Go ahead and prove the Bible is true. While you are at it, prove that unicorns are real. They use the same line of evidence and reasoning.[/quote]

There are entire books dedicated to proving the Bible true and entire books dedicated to disproving it. I've seen a few cool places that harmonize the creation account with our modern scientific understandings, but I don't think anyone's going to prove the Bible is true OR false whole cloth because we don't have enough evidence. So both of us either believe or disbelieve based on other things than evidence.

As far as unicorns, interestingly enough I know of incredibly smart people who aren't willing to believe that they never existed - and they don't mean the argument that rhinos were the original unicorns, either.[/quote]

Smart doesn't equal true. There are plenty of smart people who fall victim to conspiracy theories or to cults.

If they are that smart, then they should know better. Ask them if leprechauns, dragons, elves, wizards, and Santa are real too. At least Santa has a historical basis for the myth.  [/quote]

I mean...they're not alone:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/november/the-siberian-unicorn-lived-at-the-same-time-as-modern-humans.html[/quote]

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