I don't have a problem with an old earth. A literal reading of Genesis causes all sorts of problems. Days could be eons, so on and so forth.Tyrphanax said:
It just seems odd to me for someone who is intelligent and critical to stop their line of critical questioning at, "Well, because that's what the book says." How would, say, a by-the-book Christian scientist reconcile their latent desire to know things about the Earth with the proven fact that the Earth is much older then the Bible says? And why would they even want or try to reconcile the two opposite lines of thought when one is obviously wrong? Why would someone deny the proven deliciousness of pork products when, in general, they have caused no spiritual harm to anyone over the centuries just because a book says so for really no reason? Doesn't God have better things to do than worry about who ate pork when he supposedly put it here in the first place? Isn't it kind of an un-God-like dick move (yes, I realize he is famous for dick moves) to do that?
I believe the Jewish dietary laws were more for the Israelites of the time. Uncooked pork can have all kinds of bad things in them, and the locals were using them for sacrifices and stuff. Instead of giving the Israelites a cook book, God said to just avoid it completely.
One of my big things with Mormonism is that a lot of the events of the Old and New Testament and most of the places have other historical sources and archaeological evidence to support that they existed at one time. You literally can't throw a rock in the Middle East without breaking a clay pot with some historical document or hit an ancient city in the sands.
But the Book of Mormon seems to be the only record of an entire Jewish civilization that lived in America for thousands(?) of years. How do the leadership explain that no one has ever found their currency, old city walls, etc.?
Speaking of the leadership, one of my other big things is that I find it really hard to believe that Jesus would let the entire salvation of the world fall apart so soon after the Resurrection and would let it continue that way for 1800 years, until He remembered that He made this newer testament and needed to establish a succession of prophets He never mentioned needing. To me, letting the church wander about for 1800 years when they couldn't rebel against things they were never told sounds like one of those moves Tyr was talking about.