• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Strange Bedfellows

Status
Not open for further replies.

Vance

Contributor
Jul 16, 2003
6,666
264
59
✟30,780.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Someone on another thread pointed out that atheists and YEC’s are strange bedfellows regarding their views about evolution, just when I was going to post a thread on this same subject! I guess great minds think alike. Anyway, here is some food for thought:

There are two distinct minority groups which most violently oppose the idea that evolution and Scripture can be entirely compatible:

Militant atheists and YEC’s.

I am not sure which first concluded that their mutual position was correct, but they have developed a symbiotic relationship, feeding off each other, quoting each other, believing each other’s statements since it is what they want to hear.

It is true that when the atheists first heard of evolution, it seemed to give them an "out", a method of explaining origins without God. Because you CAN describe evolution without God, there is no doubt about it. Sure, there are still first cause arguments, intelligent design issues, etc, but evolution itself CAN happen without God. Just as importantly, it was contrary to the traditional reading of Genesis. Atheists combined these two and leapt for joy: they had a platform to stand on.

They were wrong, of course. While evolution CAN happen without God being involved, this is not proof whatsoever that it DID happen without God, much less that God does not exist. No more than photosynthesis happening without God could prove that God does not exist. Nevertheless, atheists took full advantage of the new foothold they seemed to have gained and began presenting evolution as a blow against Christian teaching, proving the Creation stories false. If that is false, they argued, everything else may be false as well!

Many Christians bought right into this hook, line and sinker. Rather than learn the lesson of geocentrism and simply recognize that their traditional reading of Genesis and their concepts of origins and the age of the earth may be incorrect, they dug in, giving the atheists more and more ammunition. They began making their OWN statements agreeing with the atheists that evolution and Scripture were entirely incompatible, thus playing right into their hands. From then on, the more that science established evolutionary concepts, the shakier Christianity would become. And, I am sure this worked to a great extent. It is dismaying to think of all those souls lost to the Kingdom due to the combined teaching of these atheists and Creationists (as they were soon being called). These strange bedfellows created "all or nothing" propositions that led people with no choice but to accept Christianity or the persuasive new evidence of science. Who knows how many abandoned Christianity as a result. However many there were, the blame lies equally on both of those groups teaching the same "incompatibility" dogma.

What would have happened if the Christian community as a whole immediately stated that evolution could, indeed, be compatible with Scripture, we just had to adjust our traditional reading as we did with geocentrism? How many of these lost souls would still be in the Kingdom?

Over the years, the Christian community in general HAS come to apply the lesson of geocentrism and simply re-examine their traditional readings of Scripture. After all, just as with geocentrism, Man is able to err when reading God’s Word, and sometimes they can err BIG. This has taken a lot of the wind out of the atheistic sails and, I am convinced, has prevented the loss of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of souls.

But in the last few decades, we have had a resurgence of the debate, with Young Earth Creationists once again spouting the atheistic line that evolution and the Scripture are incompatible and that if evolution is correct, Scripture is false. While still primarily a movement in the U.S., it is spreading to the UK and Australia as well. They have ministries which spread these teachings and, once again, are presenting it as a choice: you can either accept the Scripture or the evidence supporting an old earth and evolution. The atheists are there in the background urging them on. Once again, souls are being lost to the Kingdom. I have seen it happen and it makes me very angry.
 

Buck72

The Watchman
Oct 14, 2003
387
18
53
Charleston, SC
Visit site
✟23,117.00
Faith
Protestant
Wow Vance. I had no idea that taking the Bible literally and believing all of the Flood nonsense was synonymous with treason against God and aiding and abetting the archenemies of Christ.

Please help me to know what parts of the Bible are okay for me to read by myself so as not to miscontrue its delicate and fragile "meaning"? Or do I need someone to explain the "real" meaning of the plain text?

There is a name for that....CULT.

 
Upvote 0

Karl - Liberal Backslider

Senior Veteran
Jul 16, 2003
4,157
297
57
Chesterfield
Visit site
✟28,447.00
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Married
Politics
UK-Labour
Reading the Bible literally is not the problem. Insisting it's the only way and that therefore Christianity is incompatible with mainstream science is.

Vance - I wrote an essay on this a couple of years back - http://freespace.virgin.net/karl_and.gnome/thelie.htm
 
Upvote 0

Vance

Contributor
Jul 16, 2003
6,666
264
59
✟30,780.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Correct, it is not the literal reading or ANY specific belief on non-salvation issues that is the problem. It is refusing to recognize that a specific belief is based on a specific interpretation which may be flawed in some way. It is this humbleness which would prevent anyone from broadcasting to the world such statements as "if X is true, then the Scripture is not true", or some similar "all or nothing" proposition.

Believing something is true is perfectly fine, but evangelizing it dogmatically in a way that can damage the overall Message when the specific belief is not a salvation issue is not fine.
 
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.