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To: Lera; GodGunsGuts; Republican Extremist; Grizzled Bear
"You cannot take the bible as a literal document.."

You are in good intellectual company:

"Difference Between Form and Content One answer was already worked out some time ago, as the scientific view of the world was gradually crystallizing; many of you probably came across it in your religious instruction. It says that the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring. Thus Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world."

"In the Beginning...." A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

23 posted on 12/03/2009 7:52:05 PM PST by Natural Law
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To: Natural Law

What the heck would the Pope know about the Bible??


30 posted on 12/04/2009 8:30:51 AM PST by ElectricStrawberry (Didja know that Man walked with 100+ species of large meat eating dinos within the last 4,351 years?)
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