Things I learned in church

[T.J.]

I've seen the case made for no specific timeline given in Genesis between creation and the Fall of Man before. You have to take the book as non-literal in some areas in order to accomplish this, which is an easy enough argument to make if you concede that the book was written by a Hebrew man who had limited knowledge of the world (I'm sure the world back then was basically just the general area of where they lived) and the whole different language thing. I believe Moses is actually credited with writing the first five books of the Old Testament. But in order to do that you have to say the bible is inspired by God which opens up a whole new can of worms. I'm getting off track, though.

The Garden of Eden being seen as a paradise and specialize as a kind of heaven or place where time moves more slowly makes sense at least in the context of the bible because of how much importance is put on man in getting back to paradise with God. Problem. You can't exactly separate man in the way you did because we did not evolve from monkeys, or apes. We share a common ancestor. Also, there are animals in the Garden that was with Adam and Eve. How do you account for the similar animals between the Garden and outside the Garden? And as for my third point, you make the common mistake of using the bible as the source to proving an account in the bible. That's like me saying Obama is building his own secret army and citing Fox News as a source. It just doesn't work.

But let's for a moment assume for sake of argument, there are two types of human beings in the world. One with a soul and one without a soul. How do you tell them apart? I mean, right now a Christian somewhere could be trying to convert a person who has no soul and won't be going to heaven anyway. Actually, a lot of believers right now could be wasting their time because they don't have a soul so they aren't going to see an afterlife, or any afterlife.