Posted on 09/20/2005 5:35:52 PM PDT by curiosity
Most adult Sunday school classes don't raise eyebrows, but my church is planning to hold one that's sure to. It's called "Evolution for Christians," and it will be taught this winter by David Bush, a member of the church I lead, Fairfax Presbyterian. David is an articulate government retiree who has been interested in this topic for nearly two decades, teaches a class on theories of the origins of life every five years or so, and once again has really done his homework. His view is that science and religion answer two different sets of questions about creation, with science answering the "how" questions, and religion answering the "why" ones. "With a little bit of wisdom and tolerance on each side," he tells me, "I think they can complement rather than contradict each other."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
BS. Evolution neither affirms nor denies an afterlife.
Deselected maybe?
Then there are others who are just conformists and dont want to stir the pot.
Interesting article, but it's not for the evolution ping list.
"There's nothing uniquely Catholic about that position. There is no logical reason Protestants can't accept it too."
No doubt they can.
Indeed, they should.
Evolution usually generates more heat among (some)Protestants than Catholics because of the different interpretations of the Bible.
I wanted to get a clear Catholic perspective into the discussion early, because it needs to be said that there is nothing theologically wrong, at all, with the idea that God made man by causing us to descend from primates.
So what?
Yup.
Hardly. That is a copout. I want to see the half-bird, half-reptile and I want to see it now. I also want to see the half-amphibian and half-mammal. Or fish-reptile-mammal-bird whatever. If it is true these forms should still be everywhere and in obvious transition.
Can you explain the scientific reason for that?
No it's based on Victorian era metaphysical thinking interpreting physical evidence.
"If you are a thinking Catholic, Evolution should not be 'easy' for you. First of all, it is a postulation, not a a proven, or even provable belief. Secondly, if their was never a Fall, then their is no need of a Savior. If we are only getting better all the time, all we have to do is wait. None of that messy Cross or Salvation stuff is needed."
What does the process by which God made us have to do with the sinful nature, the fall of each and every man?
Read Genesis very, very carefully and realize what it is: it is autobiographical. It is the story of YOUR life, from creation, through awakening to good and evil, and the fall that comes from that. And how you cannot go home to that innocence again, ever.
The Gospels do tell you how you can reconcile to God.
Genesis 1 is not a history of an ancient past. It is the literal autobiography of your own early years of life. Of every single man's and woman's. That is what God meant by it. Indeed, it is the most intensely personal aspect of the whole Bible, aimed by God directly at telling our own personal story to each of us.
We are born naked and innocent, and we awaken to shame and discover we are naked, and with sin, and we hide from God and are banished from that free and easy association we had with Him when we were very tiny and still remembered what God was like. We grow. We become strong, and violent. We are forced to earn our living by the sweat of our brow. We are tempted into many sins, many sins. And we die. Adam. Eve. You. Me.
That is what Genesis is. The story of you and Your Own Fall. And Mine. And His and Hers.
Read it again and remember that.
Then turn to the Gospels and focus on what God had to say to us when He came to Earth in the flesh, because that's what matters now.
Bickering over the biological origins of life and how we descended from primates, or not, because of sentences of Genesis that are really about YOU and not biology texts, takes us away from God and from each other. We already went astray in our youth. Genesis reminds us all about it, that moment when our individual innocence ended, we KNEW good from evil, but we chose the evil because it tasted EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD (didn't it?). And then we were ashamed and clothed ourselves.
We all fell.
We almost all remember it, more or less.
Let's face the truth and not try to cast Genesis 1 off into ancient history, as though it's not relentlessly telling the story of our own individual lives, naked before the whole world.
Because that's what it's about.
BS!
How old are you?
I see. Would you mind elaborating on what exactly constitutes "victorian era metaphysical thinking?" Can you identify fundamental principles of such thining and explain why they are wrong?
I think the bible has a word for this type of pastor....."worthless shepherds"....what the Lord called them in the Old Testament. Worthless shepherds who led his people astray through their false teaching and led them to their own destruction.
Obviously THEIR God is not POTENT enough to create the world without using trial and error and a billion years. Plus what kind of a loving God uses principles like survival of the fittest?
What makes this pastor or any other so-called "christian evolutionist" think a God who gives us evolution and an untruthful/unreliable book of "poetry" and myths is therefore, interested in or capable of helping us in our lives? I would say their version of God's "word" is nothing more than a rusty bucket full of holes, incapable of watering anything but the ground.
I will take God at His word.
No, their God is potent enough to patiently work for 3 billion years on the problem.
Or, to look at it another way. Their God was potent enough to snap the world into existence at the Big Bang, and yet He knew that eventually all that chaos would lead to you.
Now *that* is omnipotence.
"Plus what kind of a loving God uses principles like survival of the fittest?"
What kind of loving God causes babies to be born with spina bifida, or tiny little children to suffer the ravages of muscular dystrophy?
The real One.
We cannot understand why God does as He does, because His reasoning is not ours.
We can only accept it as it is, and go from there.
Just look around. Any living thing you see.
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