BobRyan said:
Again - it is helpful to "Read the text".
And again the reading the text is insufficient to determine whether or not all animals were wholly herbivorous at creation. It is a conclusion you draw from inadequate data. Young's Literal Translation, for example, prefers this construction for Gen 1:30:
and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which is breath of life, every green herb is for food:' and it is so.
which quite clearly implies a somewhat different meaning from that which you prefer. Even the word 'meat' may be used metaphorically or allegorically.
I would also be interested in what you imagine the herbivorous diets of, for example, ticks and vampire bats would have been, and also what the breeding habits of, say, digger wasps would have been before the Fall. It seems to me that you are requiring an awful lot of quite dramatic evolution in many, many creatures to make your scenario make sense.
[quote:850d0]L.K
In parentheses, I find your use of multi-sized font and different colours confusing to follow. However, as far as the point you are making goes, you seem only to be confirming that Genesis 1 indeed does not specifically exclude meat-eating.
1. Is that why you completely deleted the Gen 1 text in your response ;-)
2. You have confirmed your statement - you were confused in reading the text.[/quote:850d0]
1. No. It seemed redundant to keep quoting the same verse repeatedly.
2. No, I have merely pointed out that there is no absolute certainty about the precise meaning of the text. It is you who seem confused about the reasonableness of this argument. This is demonstrated by the alternative translation I have provided.
By contrast - I appeal to the "details in the text" as stated above in Gen 1 you seem to be content to argue "from the void of what the text does NOT say".
No, I prefer to admit doubt and uncertainty where confident and absolute certainty is unwarranted.
The fact that the animals were created as herbavores means that even the adaption to a carnivorous diet was more likely an omnivore transation than suddenly "waking up to discover they could not eat plants".
You know --- the obvious.
You have accused me of making guesses and imagining stories based on an inadequate understanding of OT verse. I would suggest that you are doing exactly the same, based on no more than your largely unsupported belief that all animals were created herbivorous.
[quote:850d0]But you are happy to speculate about things that might support your argument. If T Rex didn't make the Ark, it was an obligate carnivore before the Flood, which suggests other animals were also obligate carnivores before the Flood,
I have never seen a fossilied T-Rex digestive tract - nor one preserved -- have you? Since THAT is what determines what an animal "can process" in terms of meat vs plants "or both" where do you get your obligate assumption? More "assuming the central point rather than proving it"?[/quote:850d0]
You seemed happy before to accept the idea of T Rex as an obligate carnivore. Palaeontologists seem to be fairly certain of this fact. There is absolutely no doubt that T Rex was carnivorous:
For most dinosaurs, the best that we can say about their diet is based on the type of teeth that they have. In general, the meat-eaters (like T. rex) have long, pointed teeth that have edges like steak knives; these types of teeth are good for puncturing and slicing through flesh. Plant-eaters, on the other hand, usually have teeth that are good for snipping and cutting or crushing plants.
However, in a bit of luck for us scientists, we actually have some fossil evidence that tells us the types of animals that T. rex was eating. Tooth marks found in Triceratops and Edmontosaurus bones are perfect matches with T. rex teeth. Thus, we have good evidence that these two dinosaurs were part of the T. rex diet, but T. rex probably would've eaten any type of meat that it could find: dinosaurs, mammals, lizards, you name it!
From
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3209/02-ask.html.
You may also want to do some research on studies of bite force and coprolites. I think your argument is little better than any others that encompass 'if you weren't there to see it, you can't know.'
[quote:850d0]What process do you suppose caused that change in behaviour and dietary requirements? If the change occurred in T Rex, it is reasonable to suppose it affected other animals that we now know to be carnivores.
Again the "do you suppose" language is an "appeal to guessing".[/quote:850d0]
And again you are happy to guess away in support of your own argument without any reference to evidence other than a particular interpretation of a particular translation of biblical verse. 'Do you suppose' is a form of words asking you to apply some reason and logic to your conclusions, rather than relying on rhetoric.
True - certainly lions would have started out as God specifies in Gen 1 -- eating plant food and would have then "changed" to eat flesh food "at some point" since we see that they are carnivores today.
Assuming your conclusion based on wholly inadequate evidence. The 'change' you imply suggests evolutionary adaptation to an extent much more extensive than the 'minor change' you attempt to weasel out of the dilemma with below.
[quote:850d0]L.K
So is that "changing" anything but evolution under another name?
Evolution can mean
1.
"minor change over time within a kind"
it can also be bent to the needs of atheist darwinism via a model of endless rounds of story telling about how one thing came from another - stories easy enough to make up -- but not actual science and framed for the public as
2.
"descent with modification over time from a common ancestoral single celled life form" -- [/quote:850d0]
Again, good rhetoric, but poor argument from evidence. Repeating the same mantra over and over does not make it in some way more true than it was before.
Equivocating between the TWO definitions for the SAME term makes a good parlor trick -- but is not good logic.
I suggest you apply logic and reason to your own arguments and provide some evidential support for your implied claim that I am equivocating between definitions of 'evolution.
In Gen 3 we see a "curse" added and plant life is changed to include thorns and thistles "according to the text".
This shows a CHANGE in the biology of some kinds of plants but not ALL.
From what we SEE in Genesis 1 as the food source for ALL animals vs the fact that we SEE today the existence of Carnivores -- a CHANGE in biology would have been required WITHIN some species but not all.
Assuming your conclusion again and again without any evidence to support it, biblical or otherwise.
[quote:850d0]L.K
The verses do not support a change to meat-eating.
Again - I am happy to leave our difference framed just as we see it in that exchange -- it makes my point perfectly.[/quote:850d0]
Your point is inadequately supported.
As in all these exchanges
I am simply answering the OP question "ABOUt the text FROM the text"
It is one thing to claim that you do not agree with the text -- it is another not to even know what it says and the difference between a wild guess outside of the text - vs a direct honest rendering of the text itself within the parameters of valid exegesis.
I think I have more than adequately demonstrated the extent to which you are prepared to draw conclusions from the text that are not supported by that text.
[quote:850d0]That I do not agree with your interpretation of the text is not evidence that I do 'not even know what it says'.
You seem to a have the need to "ignore" Genesis 1 regarding food and to "ignore" Genesis 7 regarding clean animals going in by pairs and all this is done on your part in a transparent effort to "CREATE conclusions that do not work" so you may add "and that is the problem with the Bible"!.
[/quote:850d0]
I have ignored nothing. You choose to interpret failure to agree with your own conclusions as in some way indicating a failure to read the OT verses from which you draw those somewhat shaky conclusions.
As I said -- transparent.
What appears most transparent to me is your unwillingness to consider your own arguments and conclusions critically and your absolute conviction that you have the key to an unassailable truth.
Hint: Avoiding such transparent agendas is the whole reason that the system of Exegesis was created.
Hint: that a system of exegesis for holy books was created does not in and of itself guarantee that any resulting extensive and critical interpretation of those holy books results in anything other than an unquestioning acceptance of myth, fable and legend as if it some value in describing the real world. Ho hum.
