To Evilutionist: Aside from your ridiculous comment about sniffing on the sidelines, there is much truth in what you say. But you already know I know that. Yes, there are frauds in every field, and they ALL disgust me.
However, not every field is force-taught in public schools to our children as absolute truth! Therein lies the rub. Evolution, ancient ages, carbon dating, etc. etc. are all proclaimed to be the truth. Kids have to learn the timelines, the terminology, and what the 'correct' answers are for tests. Nevermind truth. Just know the 'right' answers.
That disgusts me even more.
Believe me, it is not just 'religious' people and 'YEC' folk who are upset about all this. I think you will find that the pedestal science had set itself up on has been crumbling rapidly. Our kids -- the entire populace -- is being instructed by the priest-scientists NOT to think, not to use common sense, not to study for themselves.
Just learn the 'right' answers.
While evolutionists have their temper tantrums, sidelines or playing field. Temper tantrums won't get them anywhere in the long run.
Abe, you asked me what do I do when I am not sure about something in the Bible. I try to go back as far as I can to the original. You see, I know that it has been fallible human beings who have done the translating through the years. I have been a deaf interpreter and I know that sometimes one has to choose between 'literal' and 'meaning' when one is deciding how to interpret a double meaning word or an idiom or such. And the Hebrew language is full of them. Greek is not a far second. So I know that it has been very difficult for many of the translators where 'firmament' and such is concerned.
So, first of all, I note that the basic message of the Bible has remained untwisted, unadulterated through all translations. That, for all of us, the the most important thing. God is God; we are not. He is Creator; we are creatures. He is perfect; we are sinners. He cannot accept rebellion and disobedience, which we call sin; we cannot avoid it. He, however, for what are quite umfathomable reasons, loves us, and therefore He has taken care of the cost/wages of our sin Himself, coming as Jesus and taking our burden of salvation on Himself and achieving it for us. In throwing ourselves on His mercy, He then transforms us, giving us natures that are no longer rebellious. We are then, through His power, gradually conformed to His likeness and thus acceptable in His presence, where we will be allowed to be forever.
That is the basic message of the Bible. All of its history, poetry, prophecy, teachings, revolve around that.
So when there is some kind of argument about firmament, I look it up. I have several concordances and a variety of translations here. The word for 'firmament' is raqia, or raqiya, meaning 'an expanse'. It is from the root raqa, meaning 'to pound or overlay; to beat meake broad, spread abroad, stamp, stretch.'
OK, does that mean the sky is solid, or was thought solid? Not at all. For the birds flew in the firmament! The second thing I do, then, is read more Bible, for the first rule of exegesis is to let Bible explain Bible.
Twelve times God says He streteched out the heavens. That may be a clue. I know it was why the Big Bang was rejected for so long -- it sounded to much like Bible! That makes me chuckle. Anything but God....anything!
But there may be something else in that spreading of the firmament as a thin sheet, like a piece of metal being pounded. First of all, there is the indication that perhaps some force was involved in the spreading of our sky. Just as interesting to me, however, is the fact that our own atmosphere is in layers -- each 'spread out' over the top of the other. Our troposphere, then the stratosphere, then the mesosphere and then the thermosphere -- each with their own qualities and temperature variations. Our troposphere only goes up ten miles. In terms of the whole atmosphere, that is a pretty thin sheet! The stratosphere extends for only 20 miles above that. Still, all things considered, an awfully thin layer of atmosphere. Another twenty miles for the mesosphere. We are talking about three awfully thin layers of atmosphere here! Especially when you consider that the thermosphere extends from 50 to 300 miles up.
So wouldn't raqia, then, be an awfully good description of our layers of atmosphere? I think it is an excellent word for it now that I know a little more about our atmosphere.
It's just that a lot of the translators did not have access to this kind of knowledge. In other words, the Bible was ahead of them. So I cannot yell at the interpreters, but I do have the opportunity to look at things that were not available to them and understand that it was the original manuscripts which were infallible, not our modern translations. The more we have to depend on man's mind, the more fallible we find the results.
And yet God is powerful enough to have ensured that the basic message of His love and care for us, and our responsibility and accountability to Him, have remained the same throughout all ages.
So if some want to argue that bats don't belong with birds in classification, that is fine. First, it tells me that the arguer is ethnocentric to an astounding degree, refusing to even admit that there might be another way of classifying living things other than what he has been taught (how successful the establishment has been in teaching them to never question but always believe what they are told!). Second, it tells me that I need to look into how the ancients classified living things. If it was through locomotion, which it was in this sense for them, then not only do bats belong with birds, but whales and dolphins belong with fish.
So, actually, the closer I look, the more I know I can trust the Bible even when I might not understand it. But I do understand the main message, and I have responded to it, and know for sure now, as a personal witness, that the message of God's creation, love, and redemption are true. And that is the main thing. I look at what I am now, and what I am becoming, compared to what I was before, and I am astounded. I could not have made these improvements by myself, I guarantee you!
I know God, I trust Him, I love Him.
And both God and actual real science have made me love the Bible.