Evolution and The Bible are incompatible

"this is because the Bible explicitly teaches against Evolution." Now, the bible certainly does not explicitly teach against evolution, in that would require an actually developed understanding of the theory and a response to it. The real concern is whether or not the Bible implicitly teaches against evolution, in that it posits some sort of premise that is in necessary contradiction with the theory of evolution. My opponent goes on to insist that since in bygone days virtually all theologians were creationists, this is ample and reasoned evidence that current non-creationist theologians have abandoned the movement of the Holy Spirit. Does this sound reasonable to you? But let's remember what I said in my first round: "It is relatively clear that certain commands are largely contingent upon the realities of the human condition relative to the social milieu in which the addressees of those commands exist." That is to say, the message always trumps fact in the Bible. The original church required women to cover their heads and men to have them uncovered. Moreover, the original Church gave EVERYTHING they owned to the church. The original Church did not mandate freedom of slaves but only benevolent treatment of them. Evangelical Christianity today does not adhere to any of these practices today. According to my opponent's logic, this can only mean one thing: they have abandoned the Holy Spirit (I would say they are following the heart of the Gospel which is often skewed by literal readings of culturally specific passages). "In fact, the book of Genesis is a history book." Now, how is this clear? This seems merely to be an ipse dixit. If it is history it certainly has not been verified as such by any other means of criticism. But if the literary structure of Genesis seems more like story than it does historical fact and there are no other means of verifying that Genesis was retelling historical things, how does one rationally insist otherwise? Contention One: The language used The use of yom is wholly irrelevant to my case. I think it DOES literally denote a 24 hour period. The use of day in its literal sense, however, no more makes the story itself literal than Jesus' use of day in his parable of the worker's in the vineyard makes his parable literal. The fact of the matter is that the language in Genesis 1 is poetic and the very content of the story not just implies, but necessitates a non-literal or, at bare minimum, a non-chronological reading. The author of Genesis uses the term, tohu wa-bohu (formless and empty) in Genesis 1:2. This rhythmic and poetic phrase sets the pace of the 7-day literary motif that is common among literary texts of that time period (see the Epic of Gilgamesh). The story goes on with the first days of forming and the last days of filling. To take this literally would not just be strange given the common motif and paralleled structure, it would be nonsensical. If the sun was not created until day 4, what light on earth is God separating from darkness (1:4,5)? Well, the author says that God put the sun "in the expanse of the sky...to separate light from darkness" (1:17,18). The latter part of the aforementioned is quoted directly from 1:4. But how could it possibly be the sun that was doing the separating on day one (like 1:17,18 insists) if it was not created until day 4? How did plants, including fruit trees, survive without the required photosynthesis for their existence if they were created before the sun? We COULD answer these objections by positing numerous, unstated and wholly ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses like, "God sustained the plants," or "God was the source of light and he merely turned it off and on to represent days before he created the sun." But like many failed theories, when we have to start creating numerous epicycles within epicycles to make our theory work, we are giving ourselves fewer and fewer reasons to believe it is true. The issue is resolved, on the other hand, by simply insisting that the Genesis account is not, and was never meant to be, literal. Contention Two: Adam and Eve Even without refutation this contention is not powerful. I will leave it for now. Contention Three: The Jewish Workweek This contention depends on an argument for non-literal days. My argument is that the story, as a whole, is non-literal and was largely used to figuratively represent the Sabbath to begin with. "...since the universe is an interconnected whole, God created the universe with the appearance of old age" Then God is deceitful. Through every test and study available, the earth declares that it is old. The earth was created and therein determined (unless of course the earth was endowed with freedom) by God to portray this unearned age. Moreover, this theory insists that an apparently omnipotent God is unable to create a fully functioning young earth. No, instead, the universe must be created with literally billions of apparent, though not real, years. which then, is more likely: That an omnipotent God could not create a universe that was both young and appeared young. or The creation account is not meant to be taken literally and thus the universe is probably as it appears. (1) Evolution and the Bible are possibly compatible I think my opponent confuses this contention with the second, namely that of probability. Something is possible so long as there does not exist some sort of necessary and conflicting premise. So my opponent must show that the creation account is NECASSARILY literal and could not, no matter how unlikely, have been non-literal. If he cannot show this, then he has not fulfilled the burden as he would have only shown that evolution and the Bible are probably incompatible and not necessarily - necessity is required of any absolute statement. (2) Evolution and the Bible are probably compatible "It is true that different cultures share a creation story, an account of a flood, etc. But these simply lends credibility to these events." So because there are so many creation stories, it is likely that creation happened? These creation stories are so significantly different that to say they lend credence to something true is unfathomable. The flood stories, on the other hand, are localized and lend credence to a very large, localized flood. The problem is, though, is that these stories of which our Genesis account shares many details and, in many cases, changes the main characters without changing the plot, predate the authorship of Genesis by thousands of years (see Enuma Elish). So the assertion that Genesis is historical and literal but, say, the Enuma Elish, is not, does not seem likely or evident. (3) Evolution is supported by the Bible "If all of humanity believed a false concept because it appeared true, it is still false. " It still stands though, that the likelihood of what appears to be true is actually true is greater than that which appears to be false - supporting my second premise. ------(p1) God does not lie (p2) God intended for the proper application of all of our tests and studies of the earth and universe to yield a very old age... (c1) ...BECAUSE Genesis is literal and the earth is young but, inexplicitly, requires old features. (c2) ...BECAUSE Genesis is not literal and the earth is old Which of (c1) or (c2) fits best with the premises and seems more likely true? Consider the ramifications of (c1). What if God also needed a flat earth or for the earth to be the center of the universe but also needed it to appear differently? This could be true of anything in our universe, including the belief that Genesis is literal. Since it is fundamentally inexplicable why God requires some things to appear a way that they are not, my opponent has no way of knowing whether or not Genesis merely appears to be literal because of some unknown requirement. So if we have false beliefs, whose fault is it really?Source:http://www.sacred-texts.com...;