Why are some Christians anti Evolution?

[BNR32FAN]

Saying that something is not literally true and denying that something couldn't happen are two entirely different things.

No they’re typically the exact same thing because one is typically the cause of the other. The cause is they don’t believe it is possible because it defies the laws of science and the effect is they conclude that it can’t be a literal translation.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I saw a Youtube show once, where some guy who was a biblical expert explained that there is no definitive version of the Bible.

He explained that all we have is copies of copies of copies, and that there are many of these, and that they all differ from each other (not always significantly but quite often in trivial ways).
But there is no definitive word for word version.

Skip to 1m45.

"Some guy"? Oh, c'mon, now, stevil!!! As if.

Most American atheists "know" who this "some guy" is.

Time to come up out from under the brush down there in New Zealand.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I could be wrong, but---uh--- I somehow think we've drifted from the main focus of the OP here ...

No it’s actually a subtopic to the main topic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No it’s actually a subtopic to the main topic.

Which subtopic exactly? And why?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

She's evidently a Platonist and thinks that taxons are pre-exiting categories into which creatures are supposed to evolve.

... I don't think sister Maria is a Platonist, ottawak. From what I can tell, philosophy isn't her thing.

No, she's just a well meaning, fellow Christian who wants to be faithful to God's Word as she feels led to be. I can't fault her for that.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hmmm ...

Member since February 2011, with 4026 posts.

Okay then.

But to answer your OP, I believe evolution is blasphemy for two main reasons:

1. It teaches we are copy errors, made in the image & likeness of God.
2. It teaches we are redeemed by a great ape, who died on the Cross for our sins.

So, as a corollary to your belief that evolution is "blasphemy," then I guess you also carry the belief that I'm not really a Christian?

 

[ottawak]

... I don't think sister Maria is a Platonist, ottawak. From what I can tell, philosophy isn't her thing.

No, she's just a well meaning, fellow Christian who wants to be faithful to God's Word as she feels led to be. I can't fault her for that.

No, I didn't mean that Maria conciiously embraced the doctrines of Plato herself. But where else would the idea of "crossovers" come from? It's a common criticism from creationists. How else would an evolving creature "cross over" from one taxon to another instead of merely forming a new branch unless the taxon was thought to exist prior to thier being any actual creatures in it?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No, I didn't mean that Maria conciiously embraced the doctrines of Plato herself. But where else would the idea of "crossovers" come from? It's a common criticism from creationists. How else would an evolving creature "cross over" from one taxon to another instead of merely forming a new branch unless the taxon was thought to exist prior to thier being any actual creatures in it?

For some creationists, it's just a matter of them attempting to describe the contrast they have in their understanding between ancient Hebraic "terrestrial kinds" with that of the branching cladistics of life in evolutionary theory.

I could be wrong, but the literature I've seen from firm creationists doesn't reflect much in the way of 'prior' Platonic forms of thoughts.

I guess we need to let Maria explain how and from where she's taken her current understanding.

 

[AV1611VET]

So, as a corollary to your belief that evolution is "blasphemy," then I guess you also carry the belief that I'm not really a Christian?

I see two types of Christians:

1. Christ followers
2. Christlike followers

Both are saved, "yet so as by fire."

 

[BNR32FAN]

As Weinberg once said: 'With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.'

Stoning people to death for adultry cannot be described as anything but evil. What you have just said is that if you were asked if stoning people to death for that sin is OK, your effective response would be 'I'll just check that...and yes, it is OK.'

I've never been able to get my head around the fact that people say something is wrong 'because it is written'. Or an act is justifiable 'because it is written'. It's a position that results in planes being flown into buildings.

And what is even more mind boggling, what has me shaking my head in disbelief, is that a few chapters later the same deity in another form then says it's wrong and you then say 'Hang on...apparently it's now unacceptable. He's changed His mind'.

Your viewing death from an atheist standpoint where death is the ultimate punishment and the end of all things for that person. I view it from a spiritual standpoint in that it is only a relocation from one place to another. I think it’s possible that there was still hope for people in hades. They might be the people Jesus went and preached to for 3 days after His death, I don’t know. In any case I trust that God knows what He is doing and that He is just, kind, loving, and merciful to those who repent.

 

[BNR32FAN]

What Deuteronomy states if a women doesn't cry out in a city where she can be heard, it cannot be rape but a consensual act in which case both parties are stoned to death for either adultery or fornication.
Did you consider a woman might be paralyzed with fear or prevented from crying out, or at the very least contemplate the verses are an extreme case of modern day victim blaming?
Like @Bradskii I cannot get my head around how anyone can blindly accept a clearly flawed law by modern standards because it is in the Bible and therefore infallible.

The Bible is not infallible as your post indicates where Jesus contradicts an Old Testament law.

I addressed this in post 1270 my friend.

Why are some Christians anti Evolution?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I see two types of Christians:

1. Christ followers
2. Christlike followers

Both are saved, "yet so as by fire."

I suppose that's one way to look at it.

 

[BNR32FAN]

My impression of your comments has been that you don't wish to acknowledge the possibility of a third option. Isn't that why you avoided my question about the range of genres comprising historical narrative?

I don’t remember reading that question, I apologize if I missed it but I don’t understand what your talking about. You question seems quite vague and could be referring to almost anything. Genres can mean almost anything as well as historical narrative. So you’ll have to be more specific for me to be able to give an accurate answer.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Did you consider a woman might be paralyzed with fear or prevented from crying out, or at the very least contemplate the verses are an extreme case of modern day victim blaming?

Paralysis from fear typically only lasts for a very short time and I’m sure if that were the cause of her failing to cry out for help yes she may die but God wouldn’t condemn her so she would’ve still gone to Abraham’s bosom.

 

[ottawak]

I don’t remember reading that question, I apologize if I missed it but I don’t understand what your talking about. You question seems quite vague and could be referring to almost anything. Genres can mean almost anything as well as historical narrative. So you’ll have to be more specific for me to be able to give an accurate answer.

No need. I have spoken with creationists who were quite specific that there are only two narrative possibillites (100% accurate literal history, or useless fiction) rather than a range of types for different literary agendas. If you're interested you could look into historiography, the study of how historical narrative is and has been written in the past.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Paralysis from fear typically only lasts for a very short time and I’m sure if that were the cause of her failing to cry out for help yes she may die but God wouldn’t condemn her so she would’ve still gone to Abraham’s bosom.

How about instead we not assume that the ancient Israelites were complete moral, or legal, clods?

Could this be a possible answer we might offer back to our atheistic and skeptical constituents, too?

 

[BNR32FAN]

Which subtopic exactly? And why?

It goes back to post 1173

Why are some Christians anti Evolution?

 

[Bradskii]

No they’re typically the exact same thing because one is typically the cause of the other. The cause is they don’t believe it is possible because it defies the laws of science and the effect is they conclude that it can’t be a literal translation.

Take any story from literature. Take any legend. Take any story involving heroes and great deeds. That we know that many of them are not literally true is not based on the premise that the events defy the laws of science. They didn't happen because we understand them to be stories which serve a purpose other than being a factual account. They serve to teach us about the human condition or simply just to entertain us. But there is nothing to say that they could not have happened.

But then there are many stories that cannot be true for mere mortals because they do defy nature. Fantasies and magic and mere men performing miracles.

So did Hiawatha kill a giant fish or someone called Ahab hunt a white whale? Almost certainly not. But they could have. But did Perseus kill Medusa? No. He didn't.

One is not true, but it could have happened. One is not true because it's impossible.

 

[Bradskii]

So, as a corollary to your belief that evolution is "blasphemy," then I guess you also carry the belief that I'm not really a Christian?

And there's your sub topic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

It goes back to post 1173

Why are some Christians anti Evolution?

Yeah, I see that. It looks to me as if both you and sjastro got off onto a tangent, circling around the extent to which we attribute "absoluteness" of one sort or another to the nature of the Biblical corpus.