Posted on 05/11/2003 4:38:14 PM PDT by Junior
Despite movements across the nation to teach creationism in public schools, a science historian said Monday that Christians haven't always used a literal interpretation of the Bible to explain the world's origins.
"For them, the Bible is mostly to teach a religious lesson," said Ernan McMullin of the earliest Christian scholars.
McMullin spoke to a crowd of about 60 people at Montana State University on "Evolution as a Christian theme."
McMullin, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a Catholic priest, is recognized one of the world's leading science historians and philosophers, according to MSU.
He has written about Galileo, Issac Newton, the concept of matter and, of course, evolution.
It's a subject has been hotly debated ever since Charles Darwin first published "On the Origins of Species" in 1859.
Christian fundamentalists have long pushed the nation's public schools to teach creationism as an alternative, which in its strictest form claims that the world was created in six days, as stated in the Bible's Old Testament Book of Genesis.
But McMullin said creationism largely is an American phenomenon. Other countries simply don't have major creationist movements, leading him to ask: "What makes it in the U.S. ... such an issue (over) evolution and Christian belief?"
The answer probably lies in the nation's history, with the settlement by religious groups, he said. Also, public education and religion are more intertwined here than other countries.
McMullin discussed how Christians have tried to explain their origins over the past 2,000 years, using several examples to show that many viewed Genesis as more of a religious lesson than an exact record of what happened.
It wasn't until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century that Genesis started to be taken literally. Then theologians started using nature - and its many complexities - as proof of creation.
Charles Darwin spoiled that through his theory of natural selection, and the battle lines have been drawn ever since.
"It replaced an older view that had sounded like a strong argument for the existence of God," McMullin said.
Until you come down from your high horse, there is very little dialogue going on.
And your trite “some of my best friends are black Catholic”, therefore I’m free to spout racist anti-Catholic comments, is so passe.
I clearly see that you must find it difficult to become immersed in what are your deepest thoughts on such matters.
Your "interpretation," while it may be one of convenience to you, shows itself to have been a particularly uniformed one up to the time of my last posting. If that is all you got out of it, however, sad to say it is you who insist on remaining simplistically uninformed.
If your two examples of supposed biblical inconsistencies are the best that you can come up with, I would invite you to share some deeper original thought with us on detractions which you regard as being substantially more potent.
Right. It really helps that you don't have to do anything but assert this. This way, you can claim to be right without having to pony up any evidence.
You're intellectually bankrupt. Your position is completely without merit. You have no means of demonstrating that what you say is truth.
Does the evidence of nature, fairly considered, point to the reality of a Creator, an intelligent source for the immense information content of every living cell?
You appear to be operating on the assumption of naturalism. Science is, by definition, dedicated to producing naturalistic explanations for everything, explanations in terms of natural causes like physical law and chance, regardless of the evidence, so that one cannot ask the question, "Does the evidence point to something outside of nature?" because that question is forbidden.
Are you willing to acknowledge the intellectual duplicity of this position?
Not so, my humanoid friend. I cite this verse merely to point out that having a generic belief in 'one God for all of us' is commendable as far as it goes, but insufficient for salvation.
This is the philosophy of science. Naturalism asserts that the natural phenomena of the universe are its exhaustive reality and that life has no divine supernatural source or meaning.
Yet by accurate definition, any concern with the invisible--that is, religion, ethical values, metaphysics--is not within the province of science, whose business extends no further than the observation and collation of data.
Speculations and statements about ultimate reality in meanings behind the universe are not proper to science because science studies observable and repeatable phenomena piecemeal and from the outside. All the same, the language of science has become synonymous with the language of truth. The result is that the description of anything in scientific jargon with apparent scientific detachment creates an overwhelming impression of authority and authenticity.
Molecular biology has come up with the discovery of an almost infinitely complex series of genome maps, an immense Rosetta stone to the power of the terabyte. Faced with something that screams of design and intelligence, and then to attribute it to the random forces of a blind watchmaker shows a level of presumption and blindness that's almost unfathomable unless you're dealing with a will that detests God or any sovereign agency that stands above it. It's almost a study in the mystery of iniquity.
I repeat...Does the evidence of nature, fairly considered, point to the reality of a Creator, an intelligent source for the immense information content of every living cell? I submit, the evidence does point to the reality of an intelligent designer if one is allowed to consider it.
And so what is done by the rulers of knowledge in a situation like this is that they engage in rule making. And so the question is not what is true, what does the evidence point to, but rather what is the definition of science. What do the rules allow you to consider and not consider. And so the move is made that science is by its very nature confined to naturalistic explanations--explanations that indeed prevent us from going any farther.
This is of course a closed system. It rests on certain assumptions. Now, that wouldn't in itself be all that bad if the assumptions were admitted. But they're concealed because, on the one hand, the rule makers want to say, "We do not consider God. We're not saying anything one way or another about God." On the other hand, they want to say, "We're saying everything that needs to be said about God," which is that He's totally out of the picture. So that's where the deceit comes in, you see? The deceit comes in by concealing the fact that there are two definitions, and pretending that you are following the evidence wherever it goes when, in fact, you've decided before you even looked at the evidence that the evidence will exclude God from reality.
Do you believe this leads specifically, and only, to your particular god versus say, Brahma, or the Ginnungagap, or the Trickster Coyote, or...?
If so, are you willing to acknowledge the intellectual duplicity of this position?
Have you ever read the Bible?
Until you come down from your high horse, there is very little dialogue going on.
Tisk, tisk. "Cult leader?" Flailing away now are we? Assuming first that I am talking to a person who is not fundamentally gramatically challenged or labors with English-as-a-second-language, "view" of scripture has nothing to do with anything here.
Failure in plain reading of the words of Jesus Christ is your basic problem. Jesus Christ and Moses affirm the Genesis account. If you indeed consider yourself a Christian, you'll have to stop hiding behind the robes of your prelates and take Him at his word.
And your trite “some of my best friends are black Catholic”, therefore I’m free to spout racist anti-Catholic comments, is so passe.
What is passe is your continually shrinking ability to hold up your end of the debate as you substitute cogent thought and dialog with all your name calling.
Sorry, George. You lost this debate a few posts back. No amount of name-calling on your part will change that fact now.
Disagreeing with you is tantamount to disagreeing with God.
See you on another thread where we can agree on politics, since we will never agree on religion.
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