Posted on 05/02/2005 4:14:11 PM PDT by CHARLITE
A left-leaning group called the Interfaith Alliance is protesting the influence of Christianity in U.S. history.
A liberal action group has challenged the views of a well-known conservative who points in detail to the influence Christianity has had on U.S. history.
David Barton, founder of Wallbuilders, regularly gives tours of the U.S. Capitol to spotlight the faith-based underpinnings of key moments in American history. But the Interfaith Alliance—a group from the religious left—recently objected to a Barton excursion, accusing him of revising history.
The tour in question was for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, but the alliance didn't complain to Barton—they went to the media.
"They seem to be committed to a fairly active goal of secularism," Barton said. "What I do is simply walk through the Capitol and pull out religious documents that are already depicted in the Capitol and show the originals."
Representatives for the Interfaith Alliance did not respond to an interview request.
Gary Bauer, president of American Values, said if anyone is revising history, it's not Barton.
"It's the history books in most of our schools that are giving a distorted view," he explained. "Mr. Barton has done an incredible job of researching the beliefs of our founding fathers and the strong role that faith played in those events leading up to 1776."
The Interfaith Alliance, Bauer added, gets a free ride from the media in citing the influence of religion on their political activities, while Christian conservatives are attacked.
Peter Sprigg, a spokesman for the Family Research council, agreed.
"It's astonishing how far the left has gone in trying to strip religion from the public square—in this case almost literally," he said. "And yet liberal Christians—liberal 'people of faith,' as they put it . . . are just as politically active as conservatives."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Our founders believed there was, indeed, a proper role of Christian principles in education, government and the public affairs of our nation. The video [1] "America's Godly Heritage" reveals their plan, shows where we got off track and what the cost has been. Perfect for church groups and as an educational history supplement.
[1]http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cfm?itemid=3342&refcd=CE05DCZL&tvar=no
Well, it's comforting to me to know God is in charge. I don't think He needs defending in schools or anywhere else.
Well, I did make that up myself.
I believe it differentiates those "creationists" who believe that God created all things, and that science describes His creation pretty well. Vs. "fundamental creationists" who believe that God zapped things into existence pretty much as-is.
We have a Republican president, Republican majority in the House and Senate and we STILL CAN'T GET DONE what conservatives want to get done. I'll take my victories where I find them. Waiting for our "elected officials" has gotten us nowhere.
He doesn't. But conservatives do.
Your post assumes that you can do anything whatever with no consequences because "God doesn't need defending". My issue is that there is a right way and a wrong way for Christians to work with outsiders, and getting in their face over evolution isn't it. It isn't Christ-like, in my humble opionion.
(granted, I'm getting in lots of face around here. But I feel that I'm among friends and that we can work out between us how to deal with others)
If you want to teach about Gods creation, you first have to win over the hearts of those that you will teach. THEN, you may teach them His word. Because THEN they will be open to hear what you have to say.
In the mean time, if you want to teach your kids that you don't believe what they're saying in science class. Well, I can't stop you. But it just isn't productive to force religious teaching in public school.
But the jackboots forcing homosexuality on our kids with the blessing of our government (courts) is okay? I think quite a few would disagree.
Narby,
I take it from your posts that you are a Christian believer. I came to Christianity, give or take, 30 years ago - believing evolution and believing that Christ was the perfect Lamb, my Savior. I am glad that you share that belief.
However, over time I have also come to realize that ideas have consequences, and evolutionism as a set of ideas has had some horrendous ones. If you believe that we came through a series of fortunate (incredible) coincidences (even if God "started the clock") to what we are today, our activities and choices are of neutral value.
As for the scientific evidence, both evolutionists and creationists deal with the same information/evidence. The interpretation of the evidence - the bias (faith) used in looking at the information is what differs.
There is a location in Yellowstone called Specimen Ridge. It has many geological layers of petrified trees that were preserved in upright positions within the rock. It was believed that these trees came to be within the ridge over millions of years.
After Mt. St. Helens blew, thousands of dead trees ended up floating on Spirit Lake. As they floated, the root systems were the first part to get waterlogged. The trees would begin floating upright, and as they became more waterlogged, started floating toward the bottom of the lake. Eventually they would become imbedded in the lake bottom. So at any given time, there would be trees floating upright at various water levels in the lake and imbedded in the debris/soil at the bottom.
Once this phenomenon was observed, some geologists went back to Specimen Ridge and did core samples of the "millions of years" of trees. Based on the ring patterns, the trees in all the layers died at approximately the same time.
Did Specimen Ridge form over millions of years, or in a relatively short catastrophic event? The bias (faith) used in the original analysis was that it took millions of years - and it was wrong.
Jesus affirmed Old Testament events as historic truth. God created each one of us for a purpose, and the choice, as in Adam's time, is ours. When that purpose and His truth is disregarded, mankind loses its way very quickly - leading to moral relativism, and a utilitarian, egocentric view of human life and others.
One of the things that has interested me over the last few years is how much evolutionism, feminism, animal rights, anti-war, homosexuality, liberalism have become default religions of sorts - each a cause celebre worth the laying down of your life.
Totalitarian societies almost without fail try to eliminate the idea of "natural rights" given by God, the Creator at man's beginning. These rights are not granted by the whim of the government power du jour. That is why the mostly non-violent revolutions in such places as Poland were so powerful. And evolutionism, in denying special creation, also denies the special position (and reponsibilities) of man in creation.
It might be useful to point out the numerous, deliberate scientific frauds perpetrated in support of evolutionism, but I'm guessing you may have already heard or read of many of them.
I believe that well meaning Christian believers can differ on this issue. However, if mankind is the product of an evolutionary process, there can be no such thing as sin (because we never departed from the Creator's original intent and design). If sin does not exist, we do not need a savior.
Like evolutionism, creationism has had incorrect theories on some topics over time, later disproved by the creationists themselves. However, there are some excellent scientists who are creationists, and many historical and current scientific discoveries have been made by folks who believed in Biblical Creation.
Would be happy to provide you further info if you are interested.
Blessings,
Where do they teach young earth? Who is arguing for that? I thought it was just stressing evolution is a theory and you can believe it or not.
I see no evidence that anything has changed in the last 2000 years, one thousand years, 500 years or even 100 years. Evolution appears to have stopped.
Surely at least a moneky or two would have at least stood upright within that time, grown vocal cords, learned to build a better home. or SOMETHING!. But no. In fact, of the millions of different life forms, species, not ONE has shown a hint of evolution.
If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes?
Why aren't there more varieties of man? there are all sorts of varieties of monkeys and apes. Spider monkeys should have brought us spider men!
There certainly were other creatures which are now extinct, and that process continues every day.
You keep trying to put God on a timeline, and that is a mistake, God is timeless, he's past present and future.
The only thing restricted to time is us, from this spot on this planet. Time as we know it, and mark it only exists here.
What is a "day" to God? God spoke and said "let there be light, and there was light, and it was good". That's when time for us began. Not for God though.
Why trade the truth for a lie?
INTREP - History - TLAC
Yes, it is - it's NOT evolution vs creationism.
My personal experience along that line are witnessing people who hate Christians because a few of them are forcing a particular enterpretation of Genesis into public school science classes.
So that's your personal experience, eh? Two things - you need to get out more, and you really ought to rethink your circle of acquaintances.
That's doubtless one reason some people "hate" Christians, but I really think there's a bit more to it than attempting to teach a class in high school.
I am completely on topic, and it's the inability of many creationists to recognize the anger they provoke thats a large part of the problem.
Some of the the shrillest comments I've read, just not here, but anywhere, come from the evos. Rather than calmly and rationally present their collective cases (which, I might add, may have merit), they almost invariably resort to bashing down into the ground those who don't accept their dogma.
Many people, especially those bred with a degree of manners and tact, find this unseemly and distasteful, and is, I believe, one of the prime reasons the evos haven't established a bigger beachhead in this battle of ideas.
It is, after all, ideas that we are pursuing here, and if one's confidence level in presenting them requires belittling those who disagree, and resorting to ad hominem attacks to blunt a respondent's parries, how effective does that argument appear? If you're going to present ideas in the marketplace of the world, be sure you have sufficiently thick skin. It's a brutal world out there.
Why do you think the Kansas school board is world famous, if not for the fact that many people feel very strongly about their children being taught something they disagree with?
There are also many people who object to having their kids exposed to a long, long litany of questionable things, evolution included.
Personally, I have no objection to evolution being presented in schools - as long as the kids are made aware there is another school of thought out there. Religion doesn't have to be "taught", but the fact that there is another viewpoint existent should be presented.
The role of academia, after all, is inquiry, most favorably open inquiry. Of course, today, that's little more than a pipe dream, and the simple fact of the matter is, after the great bulk of these kids "graduate", they'll have to forget most everything they've "learned" and start teaching themselves, if they want to grow at all and make something of themselves.
They don't have to embrace creationism, any more than they have to embrace evolutionism. No, the aim, the end product, should be the ability to think for one's self, to obtain accuracy in thinking, if you will. You don't get that by being exposed to just one school of thought. The world doesn't work like that.
A famous saying in the crevo threads is that "creationism is a cancer on conservatisim". Your post is an example why, because you apparently have no clue that some people, many of them Christians, really dislike fundimentalist creationism.
Yeah, and a lot of people, many of them Christian, really dislike fundamentalist evolutionism, especially as it's being thrust down their kids' throats virtually unopposed, mainly through the efforts of people like you.
In passing, you think my post, which took you to task for straying off topic (admit it - you were) is an example of this "cancer on conservatism"? Maybe so, but how about you? The guy leading off the discussion talked about the growing divide in the nation, an obvious reference to the growing Left-Right split the nation is enduring. (That, BTW, is what the article's thrust was - a left-leaning "religious" front opened an attack on Christians, a growing phenomena today.)
But for you, that just wasn't good enough. No, instead you offered up a loud and insulting, "it's your fault!"
I was not impressed, and I don't think many others were, either,
CA....
I'm not surprised you haven't come back to this thread to defend your wild, unsubstantiated claims.
The bible mentions none. The first mention of death, I believe, Genesis 2:17 "...but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it you shall surely die."
And the result of man's fall is the cursing of all creation (Genesis 3:14ff)
The first recorded physical death is the slaying of Abel by Cain which is a generation after the fall.
Adam's sin is the cause of death. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22) "For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."
And Genesis doesn't give any detail about what came between, and how long the time period was from the "dust" to the "man".
Oh yes it does. Man was created on the 6th day.
The first "man", yet his parents were not human, by God's standards, as they did not have a soul. That could certainly have been only a few millenia ago.
Adam had no parents. God made him from the dust in less than a 24hr period (actually He made the beasts of the Earth earlier that day).
Who is your creator?
If you answer "God", then what are your parents?
God created Adam the same way He created you, through his parents. I assume that Adam's parents had no soul. But who knows what Genesis means exactly.
I'm sure you will say that Adam was a "special creation". Great. Show me where Genesis says that God created Adam differently from where Adam's children's wives came from. Oh, Genesis left that out? Well, it left out lots of stuff. You can't put too much detail in just a few hundred words. The gaps in Genesis are big enough to drive evolution, geology, paleontology, astronomy, astrophysics, and any number of scientific fields through in their Mack Trucks. Those are the fields that you would have to ignore in order to believe in a literal 6 day creation.
I'm sure you'll have answers, but save it.
My faith in God is't threatened by evolution. It's too bad your faith is so weak.
My parents are not my creator, they are my procreators (begeters). My parents are being faithful to God's command to be fruitful and multiply. God created the first pair of humans who enjoy and delight in the mechanism God created to reproduce human life. And this sacred institution has been functioning in this manner for several thousand years.
Show me where Genesis says that God created Adam differently from where Adam's children's wives came from.
Genesis 1:27 "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Genesis 2:22) "And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man."
God created Adam from the dust. He created Eve from the man. (Both Adam and Eve had special creations.) Cain, Abel, Seth ... were conceived through God's command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). This Adam's sons' wives were his (Adam's) female decendents. (My wife is one of Adam's female decendents through Noah; not sure which one of his sons.)
My faith in God is not threatened by lies. We simply believe in a different God. Mine is the God of Genesis as it is written. Yours is your own creative adaptation. I used to make this error, too, until I dared to believe what God has revealed in His Word to be true. I don't have all the answers, but the One who is faithful and true does.
My faith in God is't threatened by evolution. It's too bad your faith is so weak.
I think your faith has been uprooted by evolution. Macro evolution (molecules to man) requires no God. God didn't require macro evolution.
You avoided the question of who your creator is by saying who is not your creator. Well put that down into the "God is your creator" column.
I believe He created Adam too. Just exactly like He created you.
The symbology in Genesis is similar to that in Revelation. Both books were inspired, or revealed, (whatever wording you want) directly from God. Such things are dicy. Note how no two denominations who follow the Bible believe exactly the same thing. Demonstrating that 1) Gods revelations, however perfect, are not interpreted by man perfectly. And 2) different people can read the same Bible and conclude different things.
I don't think God needed to violate His own physical laws of time and space and physics in order to create man. But I do think He needed to dumb down Genesis so that literally any man of the last three milienia could understand that God was the creator. The creation stories in Genesis are only a few hundred words. There's no way any literal history of such a huge creation could be written without losing lots of details, like evolution.
God is not a liar. And His creation tells us in many many ways that the earth is very old, and life and man evolved over billions of years. He does not lie in Genesis either. But you are an imperfect man, and have interpreted His book in a way contrary to the evidence God provided you in His creation.
The sad part is that you force people into choosing whether to believe the evidence in front of their own eyes from Gods own creation, but which contains no explanation of salvation. Or the Bible as interpreted by you, that does tell of salvation. Some people will choose what they can see over what they can't, and lose their salvation in the process.
And that will be your fault.
This is where you depart from the teaching of the Bible. See Genesis 1:26.
Adam was not begotten. He was not procreated. He was created as no other man was created. Adam and I are different in this regard. We are both human, created in the image of God, but he was the first. He didn't evolve from the beasts of the earth (a non man). Genesis 2:7 ("Then God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.")
After forming Adam, God made a suitible helper for him. God created Eve from Adam's rib. Eve, also, did not have parents. No other woman was created such as she.
God is not a liar. And His creation tells us in many many ways that the earth is very old, and life and man evolved over billions of years.
The Bible does not. Man was created on the 6th day. Genesis may be too succinct to suit evolutionary interests, but it is a faithful accounting of His creative effort.
As to "billions of years", this is merely speculation. I know of no reliable dating methods to support this. Radiometric dating methods provide inconsistent results even for the age of known formations, let alone those from "times past." (See CRI RATE project). In the unformitarian mindset, the Grand Canyon is formed over millions of years by the Colorado river. Recent data from the Mount St. Helen's eruption and aftermath have provided new knowledge as to how the Grand Canyon may have formed--layed down during the Flood over the period of days or a year and formed rapidly when a cataclysmic event eroded the canyon. The Colorado river may exist because of the Grand Canyon, not visa versa.) [You do believe in the Flood, don't you?]
As to the apparent long age of the universe, Dr. Russell Humphreys in his work "Starlight and Time" describes a "White hole Cosmology" which may explain the perceived difference in time between earth clocks and rest of the creation.
I don't think God needed to violate His own physical laws of time and space and physics in order to create man.
I sure hope He did, and will continue. My Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin. He performed many miracles as witnessed in the Gospels--making water in to wine, casting out demons, healing the blind, feeding a multitude on a few fishes and loaves, ... He arose miraculously on the 3rd day following his death. My (and your) ressurrection depend upon it.
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