My apologies, I feel so greatly inclined to say something, and that I cannot remain silent when I know something of these issues. I have put this in another thread, though, so that it does not mangle your ‘Christian Game’ one. And, since I am replying to “teh Schala” as one Christian to another, it will obviously be steeped in Christian views and theses.
Chrono Trigger doesn't exactly walk all over Christianity; simply extolling the virtue of free will isn't enough to say that of it.
Somehow I *JUST* saw that post, Hadriel. =P Actually the free will thing isn't what i was referring to. I believe God extols the virtue of free will... It's why He gave us one! As my old pastor would say, "Love is borne out of choice, and it's meant to be given, not taken." God desires the love of His creations, but what good is it if they're not loving Him out of choice?
Interestingly enough, though, one cannot choose to believe in Jesus, or give ones self over to him. It is a gift that is already freely given, not to be accepted per say. It can only be rejected. In that manner, all glory of salvation is given to Jesus and God, not anything, not even the choice of belief, is left by which Man can glorify himself. I believe this is a difference in theology which my father has termed - after reading it in an article he thought quite highly of - the difference between the Theologians of Glory and the Theologians of the Cross... my father would belong to the second category.
What I meant by CT walking on Christianity was actually more in the age of the earth, along with the evolution concepts. Many Christians (though not all) believe that there never was a meteor that hit the earth in 65M BC and killed all the dinosaurs. And the ones who REALLY do their homework and study the Bible very closely can just about pinpoint the earth's time of creation, plus or minus about 200 years. (If my figures were correct, the current age is only 5,862 years.) That's not exactly a major thing; but it just bugs me that they approach evolution as fact and not theory. Conversely, I suppose it would bug them about the same if I made a game approaching Christianity as fact and not theory, eh? (Which of course I believe I have the right to do, as it IS fact to me.)
Now here is an interesting point, and one I was not even fully certain on, and so consulted my father - who enlightened me to the fact that most of Christendom actually believes it to be the scientific estimate. I would not have thought before. But anyway, first off I must maintain that I do not hold to evolutionary theory, not out of religious opposition but out of scientific disagreement. Indeed, it is still theory, and as a matter of interest, in the famed debate between the creationist and the evolutionist schoolteacher in the earlier part of the last century, it was actually the creationist that knew geological and evolutionary theory the best. But despite my disagreement with that theory - based upon several factors that, by scientific method, should cause its questioning if not outright dismissal - I am very much in favour of believing the Big Bang, of the meteor, and of the supposed 4 Billion year age of the earth, at least until a better comes along. I can quite comfortably do this because it does not in any manner contradict either my faith or Biblical teaching, and does not say anything about or depreciate from God.
Now, keep in mind that I am an ardent Christian. As I have said time and again before, the group to which I would claim to belong are called the Confessional Lutherans, who are considered conservative even by Lutheran standards. We stand by the old ceremonies of the liturgy and old hymnody, and quite disassociate ourselves from all manner of new-style service, especially the sort where the church is attempting to innovate itself to connect more to the world. My favourite hymns are those grim and serious sorts, and at best those which at Easter-tide joyfully but seriously proclaim the risen Lord. But never Praise Hymns. I do not see Jesus as a buddy, but as a mighty Prince who stands between us and the damning judgement of a wrath-filled King. I am against gay marriage, pro-life, and most other such things that seem to be the new way of the world. My Christian belief explained - and keep my old views on these things in mind in what follows - my treatise concerning the matter at hand now comes.
Now, being the son of both a pastor and theologian, I have a chance to hear things concerning the Bible, the forms and history of its literature and the like, which few others do. In fact, one of his colleagues at the university was one of the very few who has actually worked upon the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. But that as an argument is slightly flawed, I suppose, as in the strictest sense one cannot call into account the worth of a source in argument. I will attempt to hold my position through my own logic, rather.
Firstly, concerning the matter of the age of the earth in creation-time. Seven is a common number of completion and perfection. It does not usually hold literal significance in Biblical matters. Did the parables happen? Did a woman go looking for her coins? Does it matter if she did or not? When Jesus says one is to forgive a man seven times seven times, does he truly mean to forgive fourty-nine times? Of course not! What matters is the meaning that stands behind these. That Jesus seeks out the lost, and that one must fully forgive those who transgress against one. Likewise Genesis and creation. The literal number of days is as irrelevant as the literal number of times that one must forgive. What matters is what it is attempting to say: God, outside of creation, created the world PERFECT. That is what seven days means. The exact age... what does it matter? Does it say anything more about God? What are eons to Him? Years are a human measure, by the rotation of the earth about the sun. Should God measure by these things? To attempt to rationalize the years of God's actions so is almost a pagan practice. God is not accountable to the power of the sun, He is above and beyond it. Seven days, therefore, cannot have meaning beyond this, for danger of humanizing God overmuch, and making Him accountable to our perception.
Secondly, the genealogies, the New Testament first. It is true, what Hadriel says. I looked for myself at the genealogies of Christ, and it uses the word ‘egennesen’(phoenetically eh-gen-nay-sen) - I will look up the meaning, but I am near positive this means ‘sprung from’ or something akin, certainly not son. Okay, it means beget. That can be somewhat ambiguous in meaning. A chronicler, at a loss for a certain person in the bloodline, could easily have removed one or two or more, and simply connected them with this word, for it would hold true nonetheless. The genealogies from the Old Testament are yet more interesting. The fact of the matter - and there are few that actually know this - is that much of the form of the earlier parts of Genesis is, in fact, Babylonian. The list of the people bears significant resemblance to a history of kings, and simply follows the older forms. This is not to be wondered at. The writers of the Old Testament - especially if it was Moses - likely knew such stories as the Enuma Elish and other Middle-Eastern creation accounts. In writing the Bible, they simply borrowed from what people were familiar with. Of course, they threw in their own unique things. God existing outside of creation is a very radical idea, not even equalled in Akhenaten’s famed worship of the Sun-Disc Aten. But the flood? How many know the story of Ut-Napishtnim? He is the Babylonian counterpart to Noah and, in fact, is a far older story than the Biblical one. Returning to the list of ancestors, in such old accounts, telescoping the ages of people to make them fit certain metaphorical numbers, was a common practice in the region. There is no reason that the Bible would have been any different. In fact, people were often unsure of the ages of even their contemporaries as little as 500 years ago. The reason Guttenberg invented the printing press was to repay debtors, for he had thought to sell relics at a great meeting, yet missed it by a year, due to the inaccuracy of calendars. Yet more so in the ancient world. I think very few people actually knew their ages accurately even while they were yet living. It would have been impossible to know after the fact.
Remember, also, the various errors that still lie within even the Bible that you likely use. Does it still Jesus orders us to obey his words? For the word there in the NIV is mistranslated. It is rather keep and hold, which is a far cry from the law-based obey. Trust and faith, that is what keep means. Yet a small bad translation leads to great error. Or what of the word ‘meaningless’ in Ecclesiastes? I found great confusion in this, but upon asking my father, found that it is grievously mis-spoken. Read rather an old version, and it will use the word ‘vanity’. In the old sense, this is transience, passing away. Thus it does not descry the things of the world, wisdom or power or knowledge, to be meaningless, but rather passing away, dust in the wind. And hearing that, the book, before a confusion to me, became far clearer and plainer. So even within the Bible itself, there are many things that are misunderstood. My father would even take issue with many pastors, for he, as a scholar, actually has a greater understanding of the theological points than many do.
Another interesting point: why are you portraying angels as you do? When are they given such representation? In much of the Old Testament they simply appear as humans, alike in semblance to us. Did any recognize those who went to Sodom to be angels? Not by their appearance. Now and again there are greater displays, say, the angel of death, or the armies of God about the city where Elisha is. But often, angels are what their Greek name means: Aggelos (pronounced Angelos), a messenger. Where-from are the wings? Isaiah? Why? Because the Jews in exile saw the grand depictions upon the temples of Babylon, saw the gods of these foreigners depicted with wings and as winged warriors. Look:
That is Ninurta, a Babylonian warrior-god, often mistaken for Marduk (upon the left is a dragon, whence the supposedly mistaken idea of Tiamat as a dragon springs.) But here, then, are the winged angels! Now this here is just my own guess, but I think that the Jews, surrounded by these pagan gods, in an attempt to keep their God foremost in their minds, took these foreign gods to be not other gods, but things under the feet and footstool of god. These all are things that are often overlooked in the understanding and study of the Bible.
And lastly, remember that what is important in the Bible is not the literal accuracy, but what it is saying. After all, in your tradition and mine, Bel and the Dragon no longer exists as a book. We consider it part of the Apocrypha and heretical. Yet once it was in there, and people took it to be absolute fact as well. James almost - and I think should have - suffered the same fate as a near-heretical book. So here is a dilemma: what to believe? The literal words, or the overall message? Just because the number is not right, does not make the Bible a lie, and does not de-value the rest of scripture, remember. The purpose must be analysed, and the meaning behind things. If one does that, not all the science in the world can counter one’s faith, for it lies not in the realm of the physical, but spiritual.
And since I have a feeling either Hadriel or Daniel will ask, the number comes from using the various genealogies found throughout the Bible to create a timeline... One genealogy traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to Adam, so we know how many generations there were. Another genealogy traces the lineage of some people in the 12 tribes of Israel, but also conveniently includes people's ages at the time they had children, and the children's ages at the time they had children. There are some estimates involved, however, as for some people we must figure the average age when people had kids during that era. See how it goes there? Anyway, it's by no means precise, but it's a pretty good indicator.
I know this well, I have little need to ask. It was Archbishop Usher who calculated these. As I have said, it is rather a poor indicator, as such things in that year were never historical accounts - or at least rarely so - and rather spoke of prominent people in the bloodline.
By the way, I also read that when the Apollo missions landed on the moon, they had figured the rate at which moon-dust accumulates. They expected 65M years worth of dust on the moon, which is why they had those huge footpads put on the lunar module (to keep the vehicle from sinking into the dust and just disappearing)...then when Apollo 11 landed, of course we know it was a pretty rocky landing. They took dust samples and compared it with the rate at which dust accumulates, and I am told they came up with a number around 6000 years. Can anyone confirm that finding? It sure does match close with my figures from the Bible...and is even within the 200-year margin of error.
If, you believe, Apollo truly landed. There are many other issues with that lander, whether shadow-direction or burn-marks below the lander that, for some, call into question the validity of the occurrence. Even if they did do so, dust and its layering is far more inaccurate than either sedimentary layers of rock, or the measuring of radioactive decay. Both of these testament otherwise about the age of these things, and are far more a reliable source, as they are largely untouched by volcanic activity and the like.
To be honestly, I find my faith far more unshakeable when it is not accountable to the dictates of science. When I can think through any new theory, and consider it for what it is, under God’s hand, and not worry about if it literally contradicts with writing in His Book. Remember, after all: there was a time when people thought the sun went about the earth. Yet now... who believes this? It was heresy to think otherwise once, a direct challenge to the authority of God. But is this a challenge? Does this contradict? Yet this is not unlike the theories of the age of the earth, in many ways.
To be honest, I find several occurrences within the Church a far greater danger than anything that science throws against it. For if a man believes this or that of science, yet still holds God to be lord above all, saviour of his soul, and looks first and foremost to him, and that all these things of science are but matters under His hand... does this not obey both the Law, which we are no longer under, and stand in accordance with the belief of the Gospel, which is now our free gift? Does it stand against the Creed of Nicea? The Athanasian Creed? But here are what I see as the true dangers. Pastors not in vestment, thus humanizing the authority of God: pastors are thus no longer the servants of God, granted as his ministers to forgive sins in that faculty, but rather reduced to ‘one of us’, a buddy and a friend. Praise songs, wherein the focus of the service is turned to worship is yet worse. ‘Worship’ - at least in the sense that it is now used in - is not something Christians should do. What need does God have of this? Pagans worship their gods, for they think that in their limited power they need the strength of man, or the praise of man. No, the service of the Word is rather what God and Jesus does for us, rather than what we do for Him. If we do the latter, we are attempting to do works toward salvation, thus attempting to save ourselves by our own power, believing that Jesus alone was not good enough to atone for the whole world. But does not Jesus tell us merely to believe? Where is it written that we must worship or glorify him? So, by praise and worship services, we turn the focus from what God does for us, to what we do for God: focus upon Man, upon our power, and our works. Is this not sinful? And yet more dire, when praise songs instill within us a feeling of joy and elation, we are no longer clinging to the words and deeds of God, nor even on salvation, but upon our own temporal, mortal feelings. We have diminished God and the Cross into a form of entertainment! This I hold to be the truest danger to the Church, not some scientific theory.
Now, through this all, I find that to know the scholarly matters behind the Bible make all the more real my faith. To believe that the Big Bang happened, that the universe is 12 billion years old - and to not have it matter! - gives great awe and majesty to the name of God. Certainly, this is a wondrous plan of his, this world and fate!
