Are these data showing that creationism is hurting Christianity?

[ActuallyThinking]

Yes, you are saying just that. For god's sake, just be honest about all this for once.

What do you mean "be honest for once" as though I have a long history of lying. I only have 2 posts on this forum.

I never saw Jesus push education on anyone, nor did He give us any technological advancements. He could have shown people how to make penecillin, or something else that would have been beneficial from a Western point of view, but instead He healed people with prayer.

Science and technology can be good, but they don't help people become saved. That is all I'm saying. I have friends who's child got leukemia, they don't believe in God. With treatment over 2 years their child got better, so praise God for the medical advances we've made. But guess what, they're still atheists. I prefer to reach out to people's souls with a biblical worldview, rather than with a PhD which will get them temporary help in this finite life. Eternity matters much more.

 

[MacNeil, D.]

...

I never saw Jesus push education on anyone, nor did He give us any technological advancements. ....

Says the guy posting to Ye Internets on Yon Computer.

 

[ActuallyThinking]

I never saw Jesus push education on anyone, nor did He give us any technological advancements. ....

Says the guy posting to Ye Internets on Yon Computer.

Excellent non-sequitur, as if the fact that I'm using technology means that my statement about Jesus is somehow moot. But I appreciate how you sidestepped everything else and clung to this logical fallacy as a last resort, maybe I'm getting through to you in these short few posts.

 

[Greg1234]

Although you sound like you're being sarcastic, I think when we are standing before God on judgement day He's not going to be impressed with our understanding of how rain works,

The good thing is you don't have keep entertaining and correcting their misconceptions of the past. When they hit the iron gates where you tell them they were, you simply meet them there with the key that is evidence around your neck. Then watch them try to replace that key with the brute of their supposed ancestors and the momentum from their trend.

 

[MacNeil, D.]

Excellent non-sequitur, as if the fact that I'm using technology means that my statement about Jesus is somehow moot. But I appreciate how you sidestepped everything else and clung to this logical fallacy as a last resort, maybe I'm getting through to you in these short few posts.

You hung yourself. Thanks for making my job easier.

Would Jesus approve of your internet use?

 

[ActuallyThinking]

You hung yourself. Thanks for making my job easier.

I hung myself with what? A blunt observation of your continued failure to address the things I've said? Does that mean you're gonna get me now? (I'm scared now, MacNeil is after me and nobody messes with him and gets away with it.)

Would Jesus approve of your internet use?

I don't think that the bible speaks to this specifically. For some people I'm sure they shouldn't use the internet, too much temptation, for others it may be alright. Where are you going with this?

 

[AnswersInHovind]

You hung yourself. Thanks for making my job easier.

Would Jesus approve of your internet use?

Thats an excellent point! Ignore his statements about finite aid vs infinite aid, and latch on to the one thing he said that you can stretch out of proportion. Well played!

 

[Assyrian]

It could also be the other way. It think it would be a more likely case.

I would have to agree here, modern creationism is more a reaction to the rise of materialism. I think it is the wrong response, denying the consistency and power of modern science that leads people to think the universe is purely material, rather than realising just how wonderful God's creation really is. Sadly by denying the reality of the science, which God created, creationists simply confirm materialists' view the bible is an out of date fairy story and that reality is to be found exclusively in science.

 

[Assyrian]

Paul certainly seemed to do well with his "childish" belief in creationism. He healed the sick without modern technology and made a very positive impact on the world.

Paul was a man renowned for his great learning, "your great learning has made you insane" which included not just Jewish theology but classical poets who Paul quoted in letters and gospel preaching. He lived in a time when many Jews rejected the literal interpretation of the six days creation or a literal Adam and Eve in favour of allegorical an philosophical interpretations (we see this in writers like Philo and Josephus) Yet Paul never taught a six day creation or that Genesis has to be interpreted literally, and he frequently interpreted Genesis allegorically himself, Adam is a figure of Christ, Adam and Eve is a picture of Christ and the church - a more sophisticated belief in creation, than a "childish" belief in creationism.

 

[Servant of Jesus]

I also enjoying saying things that have no relation to the things said beforehand.

Here, my turn!

"Motorcycles don't have doors."

 

[Servant of Jesus]

Although you sound like you're being sarcastic, I think when we are standing before God on judgement day He's not going to be impressed with our understanding of how rain works, but rather He is going to be impressed by the faith that we have placed in His word.

Couldn't agree more (even though this is not really related to the opening post). But your point is well-taken- let's make sure we focus on the salvation issues in these debates, and not get hung up on the small stuff.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that our finite minds have some grandiose comprehension of the universe that allows us to change the meaning of what God has written for us. We are supposed to base our lives on Jesus and the message in the bible, not on what gets us a PhD and large salary (secular education).

Well, again- I gather your point is to remind us to focus on the truly important issues; and again, I agree.

But isn't it the creationists, who ignore the evidence of science and refuse to accept anything but an absolutely literal interpretation of the Bible, that are the ones who would appear to be guilty of thinking they have a "grandiose comprehension of the universe"?

 

[juvenissun]

I would have to agree here, modern creationism is more a reaction to the rise of materialism. I think it is the wrong response, denying the consistency and power of modern science that leads people to think the universe is purely material, rather than realising just how wonderful God's creation really is. Sadly by denying the reality of the science, which God created, creationists simply confirm materialists' view the bible is an out of date fairy story and that reality is to be found exclusively in science.

The decrease of creationist and the increase of atheist does not have to be explained by any conflict between the two. It may simply caused by the third factor: the quick rising of material sciences. To be a Creationist, one needs logic AND faith. To be a non-Creationist, one only needs logic. The booming of sciences greatly enhance the latter, but do nothing (in an obvious way) to the former.

Jesus says that His way is narrow. Consider that a great number of population claimed that they are Christians, does His way really look like a narrow way?

 

[Assyrian]

The decrease of creationist and the increase of atheist does not have to be explained by any conflict between the two. It may simply caused by the third factor: the quick rising of material sciences. To be a Creationist, one needs logic AND faith. To be a non-Creationist, one only needs logic. The booming of sciences greatly enhance the latter, but do nothing (in an obvious way) to the former.

Jesus says that His way is narrow. Consider that a great number of population claimed that they are Christians, does His way really look like a narrow way?

So you are saying the larger number of Creationists in the past weren't true Christians. Unfortunately it isn't a choice between logic and faith + logic, what these numbers represent include kids raised in Creationist homes taught in creationist Sunday Schools, who find as they learn more about evolution that the choice they seem to be faced with is between logic, and faith + illogic. Jesus not only said there were many who preferred the broad way to his narrow one, he also warned of causing little ones to stumble. If kids are taught that if evolution is true then the bible is a lie, and they find out evolution is true, how are they supposed to stand? It is tragic.

 

[juvenissun]

So you are saying the larger number of Creationists in the past weren't true Christians. Unfortunately it isn't a choice between logic and faith + logic, what these numbers represent include kids raised in Creationist homes taught in creationist Sunday Schools, who find as they learn more about evolution that the choice they seem to be faced with is between logic, and faith + illogic. Jesus not only said there were many who preferred the broad way to his narrow one, he also warned of causing little ones to stumble. If kids are taught that if evolution is true then the bible is a lie, and they find out evolution is true, how are they supposed to stand? It is tragic.

Stray away a little bit: I really don't think creationism is a stumbling block to anyone. Yes, kids started to learn a little bit sciences and mistakenly make a quick judgement that creationism is wrong. But kids also make all kinds of other mistakes. Here is my question to God, why would God demand kids to make so many critical life-time decisions (marriage, career, faith, etc.) when they really do not know how to make any decision? God have told me an answer. But it is still a good question.

Back to the point: Creationism functions like a sieve which filtered out people who does not belong to God. Creationism also functions like a beacon which guides strayed Christians (due to the learning of science) back to the home of faith. Creationism is what the nature of the narrow way is.

 

[Assyrian]

Stray away a little bit: I really don't think creationism is a stumbling block to anyone. Yes, kids started to learn a little bit sciences and mistakenly make a quick judgement that creationism is wrong. But kids also make all kinds of other mistakes. Here is my question to God, why would God demand kids to make so many critical life-time decisions (marriage, career, faith, etc.) when they really do not know how to make any decision? God have told me an answer. But it is still a good question.

Back to the point: Creationism functions like a sieve which filtered out people who does not belong to God. Creationism also functions like a beacon which guides strayed Christians (due to the learning of science) back to the home of faith. Creationism is what the nature of the narrow way is.

Clearly there are issues that cause kids to stumble, or Jesus wouldn't have warned against being the cause of these stumbling blocks. We may not understand why the world is that way but it clearly is. Now is creationism a filter God uses to sort out the real believers? It doesn't really sound like the kind of sifting God has allowed winnow his people before, having to stand pure in the face of the allure of fertility religions, being ready to lay down their lives rather than sacrifice a pig to Zeus for king Antiochus or refusing to deny Christ. Refusing to accept the scientific evidence for evolution hardly seems in the same class, and it is not as if we are commanded as followers of Christ to interpret Genesis a certain way. Worse instead of sifting out the immoral, the cowardly, and those who love their own lives more than they love God, this sifts out the ones whose integrity won't allow the to ignore what is clear to them is the truth. You may not think it is true and you may be happy with they way you have it sorted out in you own mind, but they don't, and it is their honesty and integrity that means creationism pushes them away from Christ.

 

[ActuallyThinking]

Paul was a man renowned for his great learning, "your great learning has made you insane" which included not just Jewish theology but classical poets who Paul quoted in letters and gospel preaching. He lived in a time when many Jews rejected the literal interpretation of the six days creation or a literal Adam and Eve in favour of allegorical an philosophical interpretations (we see this in writers like Philo and Josephus)

Paul was a pharisee prior to his conversion, and he sought a fake "higher" understanding of scripture. It led him to persecute those who read it in the plain meaning. The "higher" understanding that TDs have (theistic darwinists) is not an understanding that most people who read the bible will get. Do you think that God wrote something that we would need an education to fully grasp?

Yet Paul never taught a six day creation or that Genesis has to be interpreted literally, and he frequently interpreted Genesis allegorically himself, Adam is a figure of Christ, Adam and Eve is a picture of Christ and the church - a more sophisticated belief in creation, than a "childish" belief in creationism.

Yet Paul abandoned his more sophisticated belief as a pharisee and went with the simple message that Jesus had, which allowed him to make more of an impact on the world than he could have ever imagined.

The egotistical view of having a higher understanding of scripture doesn't seem to be necessary for most Christians in the world, since most Christians don't get that kind of understanding. It seems to be that the TDs profess themselves to be wise.....

If you don't think that they thought that Adam and Eve were not historical figures, then what were their thoughts on the origins of humanity at that time? They didn't think there was an original 2 people made by God?

 

[ActuallyThinking]

But isn't it the creationists, who ignore the evidence of science and refuse to accept anything but an absolutely literal interpretation of the Bible, that are the ones who would appear to be guilty of thinking they have a "grandiose comprehension of the universe"?

I don't pretend to understand the universe.

 

[Assyrian]

Paul was a pharisee prior to his conversion, and he sought a fake "higher" understanding of scripture. It led him to persecute those who read it in the plain meaning...

Yet Paul abandoned his more sophisticated belief as a pharisee and went with the simple message that Jesus had, which allowed him to make more of an impact on the world than he could have ever imagined.

Paul certainly repented of his treatment of Christians before his conversion and considered his Pharisaic righteousness as so much rubbish, he abandoned the legalism of the Pharisees, but his writings in the NT draw on the rich heritage of of scripture teaching he received when he trained as a Pharisee, The NT speaks highly of his teacher Gamaliel Acts 5:34 & 22:3. As Paul said in Rom 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. We actually see just how much NT Christianity follows in the theology of the Pharisees, at least the best of it, Paul used it to divide the Pharisees and Sadducees
Acts 23:6 Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, "Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial."
7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.
8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

As Jesus put it, Matt 13:52 Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

The "higher" understanding that TDs have (theistic darwinists) is not an understanding that most people who read the bible will get. Do you think that God wrote something that we would need an education to fully grasp?

Even the uneducated fishermen who followed Jesus learned that God can speak through parables and metaphors, they had to get past their initial tendency to take things literally of course. No sure there is anything in TEs' understanding of what God is saying in his word that requires any more than that. Of course the whole creation and evolution debate goes way beyond what God says in his word, creationist websites often try to argue about science and it help to have an understanding of the subject to see through their rhetoric.

That is not to say everything in scripture is as simply as you seem to think.
2Pet 3:15 ...just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand...
1Cor 3:2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
Heb 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The egotistical view of having a higher understanding of scripture doesn't seem to be necessary for most Christians in the world, since most Christians don't get that kind of understanding. It seems to be that the TDs profess themselves to be wise.....

Sorry are you saying we should not try to grow in our knowledge and understanding of scripture, that we should not search the scripture to see what they say to us about important issues facing Christianity today and how God is speaking to us through his word?

Which is better, to realise you don't understand everything and and want to grow in your understanding of God's word, or to presume God's word is simple and that you understand it all already?

If you don't think that they thought that Adam and Eve were not historical figures, then what were their thoughts on the origins of humanity at that time? They didn't think there was an original 2 people made by God?

They certainly believed God created the human race, but if they interpreting Adam and Eve figuratively, then it is likely they figurative meaning of the text was a lot more important to them than any literal meaning. It is clearly important to you, that doesn't mean they saw it the same way.

 

[juvenissun]

Clearly there are issues that cause kids to stumble, or Jesus wouldn't have warned against being the cause of these stumbling blocks. We may not understand why the world is that way but it clearly is. Now is creationism a filter God uses to sort out the real believers? It doesn't really sound like the kind of sifting God has allowed winnow his people before, having to stand pure in the face of the allure of fertility religions, being ready to lay down their lives rather than sacrifice a pig to Zeus for king Antiochus or refusing to deny Christ. Refusing to accept the scientific evidence for evolution hardly seems in the same class, and it is not as if we are commanded as followers of Christ to interpret Genesis a certain way. Worse instead of sifting out the immoral, the cowardly, and those who love their own lives more than they love God, this sifts out the ones whose integrity won't allow the to ignore what is clear to them is the truth. You may not think it is true and you may be happy with they way you have it sorted out in you own mind, but they don't, and it is their honesty and integrity that means creationism pushes them away from Christ.

A metaphor:

Stage 1: The Scripture says: 1+1 may not = 2. A kid learned that in a church, and believed it. This is the so-called stumbling block.
Stage 2: Then the kid goes to school and learned 1+1 = 2 beyond of any doubt. So the kid left the church.
Stage 3: After the kid learned and became a mathematician, he starts to appreciate that 1+1 is, after all, not necessary 2. So he goes back to the church. (for those who are not becoming mathematicians, they may or may not go back)

Most young people who learned some sciences at the undergraduate level and left church, are in stage 2 of the metaphor. God's chosen people will reach stage 3 and become creationists.

That is why creationists will decrease in number, but will always exist.

 

[callmeMurph]

Although you sound like you're being sarcastic, I think when we are standing before God on judgement day He's not going to be impressed with our understanding of how rain works, but rather He is going to be impressed by the faith that we have placed in His word.

Our understanding of how rain works may have no bearing on our walk with God but it may prevent us from going around and telling people that there are literally windows in the sky that open up and let water fall to the earth and you should trust God's word rather than science. That is not God's word that is someone's narrow view of God's word.