From your quote in bold: I was lucky I guess because even though I went to a parochial grade school, high school and Catholic University, I never had to face a confrontation between religion and science. I guess the approach I was taught probably was very different from what you are used to. Basically the philosophy i was taught was that good science and good religion are NEVER in conflict and if a conflict does arise, then at least one of the entities is bad. The reason why there should be no conflict is because the two activities are orthogonal to each other...good science is only concerned with figuring out how this universe works and good religion is only concerned with our relationship with God. Now if somebody tries to use science to "prove " there is no God, then they have crossed the line from physics to metaphysics and are preaching garbage. Likewise if a religion says that this is the way that the universe MUST work, then they too are preaching garbage since they too have crossed the line from metaphysics to physics. Anyway, I guess I am lucky in that I didn't have to fight that battle.
Actually, this is the strangest of all conceptual beliefs, that conflicts between science and theology are moot arguments. In Christianity; the paradigm can be described in one word..Faith! and faith excludes reasoning.
And from the teaching of Christ, it seems apparent that faith in believing what Mosos wrote, is an essential companion , to the paradigm established by Christ, John
5:46-47 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
The creationist that holds to a literal translation accepts this verse unconditionally, ( Christ verifying the authenticity of what Moses wrote), we conclude that the scripture is not left up to the readers translation, for the authors meaning is not subject to interpretation, only discovery when needed! Such as Allegorical symbols, or ceremonial practice, prophecy, ect
but we look for the markers, or parallel meaning, or supporting evidence in history combined with biblical confirmation within the scripture.
When science Evolution attempt to merge
TE
just for example, the creationist identifies some very serious issues that could be defined by some, as heretical, the essential paradigm to obtain salvation.IE..faith through the belief in scripture, the word is being infringed upon with the clear denial of the authors intended meaning in the first two chapters of Genesis. I think most of us creationist are compelled by the fearful consequences of this teaching being wrong!
For example
vegetation being created on the third day, if there was a long duration of time between each day , how would life continue without photosynthesis, if the Sun was not created until the fourth day?
In Re 21:1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
That seems to remove the idea of a re-creation.
2Pe 3:5 -
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
And when we the creationist see the merging of science is attempting to re-construct the paradigms of Christian faith with multiple versions of creation/evolution concepts, we ask the obvious question
what happened to faith??
Without faith ye can do nothing!
And we think of verses like
.
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
I gather that maybe creationists are more passionat about the potential for being deceived, and deceiving those on the fringes of salvation.