FaithInTheFlesh said:
I wish some of you would let down your defesnses a bit and realize no harm was meant.
You may not have meant to do harm, but harm was done. To both science and Christianity. I know teenagers don't like to get clobbered for what they do (both from my own experience as a teenager and having raised two daughters thru those years), but getting clobbered for doing harm is part of the growing up process.
No I do not understand how I have 'hurt christianity'
Several ways.
1. In about 400 AD Saint Augustine noted the harm that comes to Christianity when some Christian starts speaking foolishness about areas that non-Christians know is foolishness. Let me give you the highlights of that:
"Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books."
2. In 1600 AD Francis Bacon, a noted scientist and Christian, was able to see the theological problems of a literal Genesis 1 and making a scientific theory out of that:
"For nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error; and it is a very plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration. Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy [science] on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings, seeking for the dead among the living; which also makes the inhibition and repression of it the more important, because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy [science] but
also a heretical religion. Very meet it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith's." Francis Bacon. Novum Organum LXV, 1620
http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm
Bacon wasn't kidding. Creationism leads to heresy. This happened in pre-trial testimony for the 1982 Arkansas trial about creation science. Henry Morris and other YECers testified that the God that created
was not the same God of love and mercy of the Bible. You probably haven't had much church history in Sunday school, but this is the old Marcionist and Gnostic heresy that plagued Christianity in the period 200-400 AD and nearly destroyed Christianity.
3. Creationism accepts the basic statement of faith of atheism: natural = without God. After all, isn't that your basic idea? If evolution happened, then God didn't create? This is based on what is called god-of-the-gaps theology. God is only found in places that science can't explain. If science explains the diversity of life by evolution, then God is absent. This is not only unBiblical but plays directly into the hands of atheism.
Also, one part of this thread I specifically asked if someone would explain to me and noone has.
My apologies. I hadn't seen that part before. I presume you mean the post where you asked about man being specially created.
Yes, the Bible does say that. However, if you look carefully in the two creation stories you see that they contradict in how and when God did that. In Genesis 1 all the birds and animals are created
before people and then people -- men and women together -- are spoken into existence. In Genesis 2 one man -- Adam -- is formed from the dust,
then all the animals and birds are created,
then one woman is created from Adam's rib. Since the stories contradict, that is a big hint that neither of them can be taken literally. So, the points of the stories are not
how God created humans, but
why. IOW, look for the theological messages, not the literal reading. In Genesis 1, humans are created for their own sakes. Not to be slaves, playthings, or even worshippers of God, but for their own sakes. In Genesis 2 the point is the special relationship between men and women. As different as they often are (you've already noticed that men are strange and often obnoxious creatures; and men think women are simply incomprehensible), men and women are inextricably bound together. Genesis 2 says that.
I suppose she wasnt teaching it as atheism persay...however in alll my classrooms I have been taught evolution conflicts with creation in the bible..I guess I have been taught wrong?
Partly. Evolutlon conflicts with a
literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3. But Genesis 1 conflicts with Genesis 2-3 if you read them literally. However, evolution does not conflict with the idea that
God created. It only conflicts with the man-made literal interpretation of
how God created. Evolution itself was viewed by Darwin and other evolutionists as how God created.
hm...Ok..then fair enough tell me my opinion isnt one you agree with and support yourself instead of telling me all around I am wrong.
NoticeI didn't say "you are wrong", but "your opinion is wrong". There's a big difference. FitF, please always remember that ideas are independent of the people that propose them.
You are not the opinion or the idea. So, the opinion can be wrong but that doesn't mean
you are wrong. This will save you a lot of grief in future fights with boyfriends or husband. Don't invest your ego too much in the opinion; keep it separate from you. It lets you look objectively at the idea and avoid emotional attachment to it.
I was not ARGUING with my teacher...I was just stating that evolution can be taught but other beliefs are not...affter this whole thread Im not sure WHERE my beliefs stand, but nonetheless,,
Someone has told you that evolution is a belief. It is not. Evolution is a scientific theory. Like all of science and all theories, evolution is
agnostic. It doesn't know whether God exists or not. The
belief you think evolution is is atheism. But evolution is not atheism. It's to the advantage of extremists on both sides of the atheism vs theism debate to portray evolution as atheism. For militant atheists, the advantage is obvious -- they get "scientific" support for their belief. For Biblical literalists, it is a scare tactic to get you to emotionally reject evolution and then become followers of Biblical literalists; they get a power trip.
As to beliefs, see the second quote in my signature. Belief in the existence of God comes from outside science. What science does, for you, is tell you the material mechanisms God uses. So you can sit back, relax, make some popcorn, open a Coke, and let science tell you
how God created. You can read the Bible to tell you
who created (Yahweh) and
why God created.
It is my marine biology magnet class, in which somehow debates always start..it wasnt so unusual..
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Theodosius Dobzhansky. If it is a marine
biology class, then evolution is going to come in because evolution underlies all biology. It explains how all those marine species came into existence.
You can only win a scientific argument with data.
