No. Joshua didn't stop the Earth, he stopped the Sun.
The sun was stopped from his perspective. It's like people today who say they want to see the sun set, are they criticized for saying such tripe? So from the people's perspective, and if that occurred today, from our perspective, the sun stayed in the same spot in the sky. Also worth noting, whether the earth orbits around the sun (and of course we know it does) or the sun orbits around the earth, neither determines the position of the sun in the sky. That is determined by the earth's rotation on it's axis. With that in mind, it ultimately says nothing on the sun going around the earth or vice versa.
I don't know if Darwin set out to prove a creator with his "Origins of Species", but he lost his beliefs before he published his book. I believe he even didn't want to be buried around a church, someone correct me if I'm wrong.interestingly darwin was hesitant to release origin of species in the mid 19th century because he, a theist himself who'd set out to prove creationism by way of his observations of a naturalist, was terrified of the response he'd receive in victorian-era england. and much to his surprise, once he decided to release it, there theological response was pretty underwhelming, largely because most of the geologists who'd worked as darwin's contemporarys were themselves members of the clergy and were able to soften the blow considerably.
in fact through the last hundred years, with the exception of the scopes trial and all that loopy mess (it's tennessee, what do you expect) it's pretty much been accepted that a non-literal translation of genesis synthesizes well enough with evolution... but in the 60's and 70's the whole intelligent design movement was birthed and started a new wave of frenzied defense of literalism because of what are ultimately philosophical arguments masquerading as scientific ones gaining traction with an uneducated public starving for scientific legitimacy. so it's really only been in the last thirty or forty years that we've seen a resurgence in this nonsense
With all that said, I do believe in evolution. It's 100% proven, and believe it or not, you can see evolution within the Bible! Within Genesis! Yet the clear difference between what Genesis says and what scientists believe, is that all life descended from a common ancestor or ancestors. That we descended from single-celled organisms. The Bible states that life evolved from the first set of creatures that God created.
I'm definitely not your average creationist. In other words, I'm not a "The Bible says it, and that's that" type person. Even people like that, don't truly understand a lot of things the Bible says. In fact, just as I said the people who wrote the Bible didn't understand a lot about the world around them, it's really only in this scientific age we are living in, that we can now understand what Genesis truly states.more thoughts: mathias, i believe you are well-meaning. you're clearly not coming in here with an ideological axe to grind at the expense of everyone else's freedoms (at least i hope you're not.) you seem to come in with a mind open to free discourse and the exchange of ideas, which is noble, and conducive to good discussion, even if people disagree with your ideas.
honestly you remind my of myself a number of years ago. i was raised in a fundamentalist background, measured my christianity by the fact that i didn't swear, wouldn't drink, knew my baptist theology, registered as a republican when i turned 18, etc. i used to belong to a number of online forums that had a pretty good cross-section of belief systems and spent hours rhetorically grandstanding on political issues and creating ardent, heartfelt, well-written pieces in defense of the faith, usually related to the age of the earth and that great big lie that satan came up with called evolution, meant to deceive the masses into falling away from God.
nothing really could convince me otherwise. i had already decided on my worldview, and instead of using new information and data to shape my worldview, i instead filtered it through what i already believed to be true. i believe most of us do this; it's part of socialization, and it's rare that someone is conscious enough of these processes to transcend them. this does not make me special, or some kind of genius; i was lucky enough to undergo a series of circumstances in my life that led to great existential doubt, and then searching, and in the process of searching for answers about the universe and my place in it i found a great thirst for knowledge and a complete abandonment of the status quo insofar as it related to paradigms.
i believe the fundamental mistake you and other christians make in examining the bible is that you are coming from a place of already assuming it's true. you can't make an unbiased judgement because you're not measuring its veracity by the standards of historical texts, or by historical context, or bronze age historiography, etc. to be truly unbiased you must examine it from an outside-in perspective. have you ever wondered why so few people ever switch religions? it's because the vast, vast majority of individuals within a certain religious influence are taught that their version of god(s) is inherently correct, not really questionable, and that's all there is to it.
if the christian god was the right way, and the jews have a conversion rate of .0005%, does that mean an inordinately high level of jews just aren't smart enough to figure out the truth? or is there some deeper sociological scheme at play here?
I'm simply a person who believes if God is true, if He truly inspired people to write the Bible, there ought to be credence to it. It should be that for a scientist who follows the Bible, should be making all kinds of discoveries in his field, that go way beyond what we know today. That goes way beyond what Einstein could have ever imagined. Why? It's because of God who created everything, and obviously knows what happened in the past. Scientists don't know everything, but if the christian God is true, a christian scientist knows the Person who knows everything. (Even if Genesis isn't true, because we know God, that kind of knowledge should be evident in those who know Him)
So I'm not a cop out guy, and I believe when it comes to things like this, Christians have been overwhemingly cop out-ish. We put more trust in our ability to understand, and not the Lord's. Again with all that said, I personally don't like talking about what kind of person I am compared to others, because I never want to give off the impression I'm somehow better than others. All I want to speak about is what God knows, and that I trust what He's told us. Some would say that makes me bias, because I already trust God. (Essentially making me one of those who say "The Bible is true, that's that!") Yet I believe if God is true, I should be doing better science. The truth itself would be self evident, as evident as evolution. The better science should be the evidence.
I definitely have a lot to study, but I also see most do not see where my arguments are coming from. I think they rehash me as another fundamentalist wack job, but in reality I have a new mindset altogether. One thing I notice about those who don't particularly believe in God or a god, is when they criticize the existence of a creator, they hardly consider a possible history with Him. They don't consider if a personal God exist, what is His history with creation or mankind? They always jump to if God exists, why do we have pain/suffering/etc. That because these things exist, God cannot exist. Yet again, have you considered a possible history, that would explain those things. They may say to this that the history should be evident if God exists. Well, the human race have ancestors that exist in the past, do we know everything about what they did? Is everything they did evident to us? Yet we know they existed. So it could be that we lost our history with God, just as much as we lost history with a lot of our human ancestors. This is just one example of a viewpoint I come from in my method of arguments.your methodologies need work too. i think it's critical that you study methods of research, hypothesizing, placement within historical context, and other such disciplines in order to become familiar with the boundaries and parameters with which you are working. there are certain rules you have to follow to retain credibility; they have nothing to do with outcome and everything to do with your methods.
lastly, i think you need to come to terms with the place of science and the place of philosophy and realize that the two are different animals. you can not shove god into a test tube.
To your second point, you may not be able to shove God into a test tube (or as I like to say, put God in a box), but are you not doing the same with limiting God to only a philosophical idea? You don't think God has a place in everything we do, including science? You don't think God can increase our understanding in every subject we have a question on? If God created us, He should be able to tell us about our past as well.
A very intersting video, I love documentaries like these. I'm puzzled on his view of God. At one point in the documentary, he states his particular dislike in intelligent design (I'm not an intelligent design advocate by the way, it literally says nothing) because it makes God to be almost evil. That He designed a world full of death and so on, that He has the power to make things right but doesn't. Yet as a Christian who believes in God, doesn't he have the same problems as intelligent design advocates? If God created this place, why would He create it like this? With all the suffering and so forth? Then he said something interesting which confuses me on his views of God. He defined God in part, as existence itself. What did He mean by that? Is God just a creative force, or is He a person?lastly, matthias, if you are interested in an introduction to some of these ideas, you may find this video illuminating. it's worth an hour of your time. i hope you'll watch it.
My view is if God is just a creative force, who in the world was Jesus? Yet ultimately this is the problem for Christians who don't take Genesis literally. Just recently (I believe), Bill Nye talked about his thoughts on creationism and it's denial of evolution. He said that for those who deny evolution, their world becomes increasingly fantastical and hard to explain. Like doing geology without tectonic plates. In the same way, this is the Christian version of the same problem. To deny that God created us perfect, without death, and deny the history of mankind as presented in Genesis, all this stuff about Jesus saving us becomes extraordinarly fantastical. How in the world would you explain Jesus, what was the point of Him dying for something that didn't exist? If God created us through common descent process, and billions of years of natural processes, then what's the problem?
Why judge us for killing one another? Why judge us for having so much sex? Why judge us for enslaving free men and women? Most importantly, why send Jesus to save us from a judgment that doesn't make sense? In the end, you would almost have to make up something that you have no evidence for, to explain sin and salvation. You end up with the same problem, you accuse creationists of having, only you would have this problem toward Chrsitains. (While creationists have the problem of explaining, to those who are not Christian)
Too rap up, I know this post was extremely long, yet I wanted to respond to what I miss. I didn't get to everyone's responses by the way, but hopefully you can find an answer to your response in my responses that I wrote.
Zod to answer your question, it's funny that in a book that is 2,000 years old (4,000 since the oldest book in the Bible was written), the history of the entire universe can be found. So only the humble will look for the truth, no matter where it is. The Bible is more relevant in this age, then in the ages it was written. This is what I have reason to believe. To prove it, I'll need further evidence. That is what I'm working on, and I don't expect anyone to just take my word for it.
