Raf

Again, that's not to say there's nothing to be learned from the gospels or epistles. I just cut to the heart of your question.

No and no.

For what it's worth, The Way had a fairly ignorant understanding of evolution, playing off our own ignorance on the subject. Evolution does not predict a horse will breed with a cow and produce a cowey horse or a horsey cow.

I should pay some cursory attention to Genesis 1, but I really don't want to dwell on it. Taking it at face value: There is no way the creation of the earth in any way preceded the making of the sun. There is no way plant life developed on earth before there was a sun. There is no way there were three days and three nights before there even was a sun. The sun, moon and stars are not in a firmament as described in Genesis (unless you butcher the meaning of the word firmament, which is a solid structure surrounding the earth, which only makes sense if the earth is flat). Etc. And I'll do us all a favor and just leave evolution as the great unspoken of this thread. Unless, of course, someone wants to go there.

In case Mark missed it, I now feel this way about the whole Bible, not just Genesis. Not to say that there's nothing historical in it, or nothing that can be learned. I am simply no longer a "believer" in the sense that I have been and have presented myself on this board for so many years. So I'm coming at this all from a different framework than you. You are free to engage, to disengage, to argue, and of course to disagree.

It is a Baldwin, but I had the wrong one.

Sure. There's plenty I can learn from this story. But there's plenty I can learn from Aesop's Fables, Star Wars and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, too. Referring to a truth as "spiritual" assumes the existence of a "spiritual" plane, and that requires defining and accepting such a thing. There are other words that might convey a mutually agreeable meaning, and we can then look at this material from that perspective. In college, studying Genesis as literature, one professor noted that according to the story, "with the knowledge of good and evil comes a loss of innocence." Whether you accept this as historical, allegorical, divinely inspired or pure fantasy, I think honest people can agree that this is one of the messages that can be drawn from the tale. And for all I know, that WAS the original intent of the tale. We don't know who wrote it or why. We do know how it was received, accepted and represented over the course of history, and it's this latter view that I no longer accept.

Deleted. I was wrong about the lead actor.

Ok, but how far do we take that concept? What parts of Genesis are figurative rather than literal? Are the characters of Adam and Eve historical? Without getting too complicated, science/DNA/genetics has determined that they cannot have been historical, for a variety of reasons. Did a literal snake talk to Eve? If not, why did God punish snakes? If it was figurative, why is there no indication whatsoever that this is just an allegory? And how much of it is allegory? Did the original audience consider it a fictional allegory that is not history? What are the implications of that. Luke's genealogy of Jesus goes all the way back to Adam. Did he think Adam was a historical figure? Must have. I don't see evidence in the text that this is anything other than a factual account of what took place in Mesopotamia a few thousand years ago. And as a "factual" account, it strains credibility beyond the breaking point. Etc.

The flood of Noah's day is recorded in Genesis 6-8. I'm just going to handle it here in a cursory fashion, since I think going into intricate detail won't be necessary. The amount of debate generated may or may not lead me to go into further detail. The first thing that needs to be noted is the scale of the flood. God wants to destroy ALL of mankind. Not just men in a local area, but all men in every area. The notion that this was a local event is, in my opinion, an apologetic response to the rather clear evidence that such a flood could not have taken place as described. Taken on its own, Genesis clearly describes a worldwide phenomenon, not a local one. The flood covers mountains, after all. No local flood would have accomplished that. The ark is too small to fit two of every kind of animal in the world (never mind the logistics of bringing polar bears, panda bears and koalas to the middle east). Apologetic efforts to reduce the number of animals to a broad category of "kinds" do not solve the problem. There are simply too many animals in too little space to accomplish that goal. Noah is supposed to bring 7 pairs of every clean animal, and 2 pairs of every unclean animal. There is no prior scripture on which animals are clean and which are unclean (is there? I invite correction). The whole idea of "clean" and "unclean" animals had to do with whether or not we could eat them, and God had not given man permission to eat animals at this point. That happens after the flood. Speaking of animals after the flood, God says, "The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands." This is not true. Most fish in the sea go their entire lives blissfully unaware of man's existence. And lots of animals are not afraid of man at all. Then God says: "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." Everything? That's some dangerous nutritional advice right there. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came (yeah right). We are not told how old his wife and sons were, so technically, I can't call this an error, but what do you think is the likelihood of a 600-year-old man being the father of three sons whose wives are still of childbearing age? "Ewww" is the only word that comes to mind. I mean, yeah, it's hypothetically possible, but we're still in Genesis when the thought of Sarah having a child at the age of 75 is literally laughed at. Conclusion: This story never happened. Not globally, not regionally, not at all. Obviously, there is MUCH more I could say to drive that point into the ground, but I'll limit myself for the sake of [relative] brevity.

Re:Noah, I thought the whole point on this thread was to be obvious.

George got it first

Midnight Cowboy "A great flood is coming. The waters of the heavens will meet the waters of earth. We build a vessel to survive the storm. We build an ark."

Beauty and the Beast The Power of Love Johnny B. Goode

Yes

Don't think I know this one. :) West Side Story True Love's Kiss Happy Working Song

Timecop Mia Sara Ferris Beullers Day Off

Lotr.

Yes

Isaac Hayes South Park (movie) George Clooney

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

Oliver! "Day-O!" I thin it's subtitled The Banana Boat Song

No. Rain Man

Laverne and Shirley, on their own series, barely resembled their characters as introduced in Happy Days. Mork was introduced in a dream sequence, later reappearing on Happy Days as a real person, capable of time travel no less.

This show had a number of spin-offs, but two stand out because they were successful AND because they took some unusual liberties. One spin-off featured two characters that were guests on the original show. But if you compared the characters as they appeared on the original series to the way they appeared in their own series, you'd find they were pretty different. Strange, but ok. The other successful spin-off was VERY strange. The main character in the spin-off appeared in the original series in a dream sequence. His own show wasn't even set in the same decade as the original series! But so what. The main character of the spin-off went back to the original series as a guest, informing the original series regulars that in the future, cars and women have something in common: both are faster. Name any of the three series described in the above paragraph.