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Are you sure? Sounds like you're trying to define David's own relationship with God. I just don't know why.
You were the one who brought up what is "reasonable." It's revisionism to infer the intention behind an ancient text based on what we think is reasonable today. What matters is the frame of mind of the people at the time.
That's not the discussion I'm having, so if you're having it, you're having it with yourself.
That's great, but it's not what I was getting at.
Jesus was a Jew talking and preaching almost exclusively to other Jews. So of course he used Judaic religious references with them. But he was not talking to us, non-Jews, two thousand years in his future. He was not suggesting that we become Jews, or that we follow ancient Judaic religious ideology and traditions. And I can think of no logical reason to do so, except the false presumption of "divine authority" that modern Christians love to don and use against everyone else.
There are other options besides these, such as understanding that scripture is an expression of the human spirit in search of God, and that's its language is "as if" language, that "as if" God were saying this to man; a metaphor in other words, how they modeled reality at the time. Even if in their beliefs at the time they genuinely believed it was 'factually' so, how it functioned was just that, inspiration that 'brought God to earth" for them, so to speak. Understanding this today in light of the study of the humanities in anthropology, mythology, sociology, and so forth allows us to better contextualize its origins and its nature, thus removing superimposed modern mythologies, such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which cannot stand up to critical scrutiny. In this sense, meaning is allowed to be liberated from the symbol, which the myth of inerrancy amounts to, and to be enjoyed in a fuller, more inclusive context that acknowledges the validity of other faith claims.
I tend to see most doing things along the lines of still trying to make it 'fit' into the modern myth of inerrancy, which stands as a sort of invisible backdrop in their thinking, not readily examined head on, as it functions somewhat foundationally for them because of how it has been presented by the purveyors of the modern myth. This is whom the OP is going after, trying to prove "a day" is a literal 24 hour day, and thus throwing his support behind Bishop Usher's 17th century dating of the earth (this is how Christians came up with a highly inaccurate 6000 year age of the earth, based on Usher's splicing together the genealogies of the Bible, which is of course a flawed and ridiculous approach in light of the tools of the modern sciences). So the challenge is to say "no a day is not an epoch, but a literal 24 hour period, thus making Usher right." Both of these are flawed, but the latter is far more in denial than the former which is in the process of breaking away from the weak idea of inerrancy as fact.
Or, not be in the minds of the authors of Genesis at the time they shared their perspectives of life and reality, touching on the existential questions of being and the struggle of life, the nature of suffering, and so forth. The stories are simply vehicles that carry their thoughts about these things. It's NOT about teaching science and history!
Once again, I think you're presuming quite a lot. I think David's pretty upset. Why don't you ask him?
When I read your post, where you specifically mentioned that it was for Christians only I couldn;t help but think that the atheists who infest the RELIGIOUS FORUM would be drawn to it like flies to road kill. They have no intention of letting Believers simply discuss a theological concept. Their goal always is to, sometimes in the most sarcastic and demeaning words, inject their system of belief, their faith, into the discussion. Why ? Because their philosophy to attack and ultimately destroy religious belief. Of course, they won't, they can't, but they can be as annoying as a swarm of mosquito's. I see they have stumbled over themselves to jump into the discussion "for Christians ".
It is clear that time is a RELATIVE concept. It can slow down, virtually stop, and speed up. Certainly God, since he created time, can manipulate it. Therefore there is no particular reason to believe that God is bound by our sense of time, and our concept of the hours in a 24 hour "day"
Atheists have no evidence, NONE, to support their fallacy that the universe created itself, yet they believe it by faith. They cannot explain abiogenisis ( though they believe a plethora of experiments that do not explain it, do, purely by faith). Nevertheless, they will never stop their incessant spewing of the same nonsense.
Simply put, BULL. What Christian really cares about your opinion, it is pure pap. This thread isn';t for you, why bother.,
David, how DARE you question the faith of our non believing friends ? It's not supposed to work that way. They are to pontificate and pimp their myths, and you are to be overwhelmed by their great gods, atheism and science.You are to acknowledge their intellectual superiority and not even consider that they might be wrong. Whew, as I said, how dare you ?
I care about what he says. It sounds a lot like what I am saying, speaking from much more modern, postmodern, and post-postmodern Christian perspectives.
His response was to me. Are you saying I'm a "non-believer"? Why? Because I don't accept the way you think about these things, as if they are somehow reflective of the measure of truth?
One could say, your gestures of ignorance are meant to impress your fundamentalist pals.
If you had an opened mind, you might not be pimping the myths you've been sold. There are other perspectives Christians hold that don't agree with yours. To mock and deride other understandings than those of your own group to me shows a great deal of weakness in your faith, as well as immaturity.
ZZzzzzzzzzzzHis response was to me. Are you saying I'm a "non-believer"? Why? Because I don't accept the way you think about these things, as if they are somehow reflective of the measure of truth?
One could say, your gestures of ignorance are meant to impress your fundamentalist pals.
If you had an opened mind, you might not be pimping the myths you've been sold. There are other perspectives Christians hold that don't agree with yours. To mock and deride other understandings than those of your own group to me shows a great deal of weakness in your faith, as well as immaturity.
Forgive me, but yes- you're wrong. God didn't write the Bible. I'd be shocked if you could find anyone approaching "sane" who believes such a thing. It's a bunch of words. Proverbs, homilies, history and allegorical tradition rolled into what has become a holy scripture. People who paint all Christians as Biblical literalists are dangerous and incendiary.