Well metmom, if you can find the link, let me know, because that's the first instance I've seen on FR of someone who believes in evolution saying those intrepret the bible literally are "not Christian". On other hand, I avoid the crevo threads because they contain dozens of threads where anyone who believes in evolution and posts there is immediately attacked as a godless heathen. Seems to me alot of the creationists here bash ANY Christians who don't think the way they do and deny their faith in Christ. 90% of praticing Christians in the world should not be "allowed" to call themselves that no matter how much they dedicate their life to Christ and the bible, according to the YEC defition of "Christian"
To me, ANYONE who believes in the basics of the Nicene creed is a Christian (Jesus died for our sins, trinity is father, son, and holy spirit, etc.). And I would certainly include YCE's and those who interpret the bible literally as perfectly good Christians, though I agree with Behemoth the Cat that they makeup a small minority of hardcore protestant factions, and their views on earth's origins are not reprsentative of Christians as a whole in the world.
>> I disagree with your use of "fundamentalist" to refer to the YEC crowd. It doesn't, and several decades prior to the Scopes trial didn't, and even where used in the sense you used it was used only among a small group. I think we need to take the terms back into normal use. <<
Well, I apologize for any offense but it is common place today to lump everyone of the YEC mindset into the "fundamentalist Christian" label and I'm not sure what other label would be appopiate. I would agree that really hard-core traditionalist Catholics like Opus Dei wouldn't fit my definition of "fundamentalist Christian", even if they didn't believe in evolution. To me, a fundamentalist Christian is always a strict protestant who interprets the bible literally. What definition would you use?
I would also add that I stand by my statements that many who deny others are "Christian" do so because they have a narrow view of the world and live in a region where 90% of the people they encounter are in the same denomination as them. That's why you see stuff on FR about how Catholics "never read the bible during their mass" (I've never been to a mass without a bible reading) and how "only Catholics pray to Mary" (this is certainly news to the 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world who have been doing that since the earliest days of Christianity).
You keep using that figure, what are your sources for that, what states or regions do you mean?
Restricting the term in Christianity to the YEC crowd is wrong ~ PERIOD.
I'm taking back the word for a broader audience ~ one that's big enough to include the Pope himself as a "Fundamentalist Christian". You know we may need this if the Moslems continue ratcheting up their war against Christians.
And I do hope you are not suggesting that the Pope fails to read the Bible correctly. You're not doing that are you? I'm sure not and I'm not even Catholic.
“Well metmom, if you can find the link, let me know, because that’s the first instance I’ve seen on FR of someone who believes in evolution saying those intrepret the bible literally are “not Christian”.”
I thought you’d never ask.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2335541/posts?page=285#285
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2335541/posts?page=291#291
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2335541/posts?page=292#292
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2298227/posts?page=32#32
For the record as well, I don’t know anybody who insists or demands that the entire Bible be read in a literal, word for word fashion, without recognizing poetry, song, parable, metaphor, etc.
There’s an unfortunate tendency amongst many evolutionists to portray one who reads Genesis as being a narrative and fact, and in some cases literal, as demanding that the whole Bible be read in a literal word for word fashion. That is not the case.
I believe that every word is inspired and true, but not that everything be read as literal. If that were the case, then one would be in a position of making some absolutely absurd readings of songs and poetry. And then there’s the problem that when Jesus taught in parables and said they were parables, if one read them literally, one would be reading them contrary to the express intent that Jesus Himself said He was giving them in.
You just can’t read as literal what Jesus said wasn’t.
That whole issue of believing in evolution is so complex. Salvation is not based on one’s view of creation and the *correct* interpretation of Genesis, it’s based on Christ’s work on the cross and our faith in it.
No one has any business telling someone who believes in evolution that they aren’t a Christian or that they are going to hell for that reason.
Personally, I think that God did the best, most concise job telling us what He did in the fewest words possible. And that is that He created different classifications of animals with potential for great variation, but that life did not evolve from single celled creatures over billions of years. The Bible clearly indicates separate creation events for the different categories and twice it says that God used the dust of the earth for the raw materials.
IMO, that precludes the kind of macroevolution that most of the evolutionists adhere to.
There are many Bible scholars who have different views about the age of the earth and the number of days of creation and what they mean. And most sides have some strong arguments to support their positions, and some weak areas which work against it.
Nobody that I’ve seen has a completely satisfactory explanation that totally meshes Scripture with what is observed in the fossil record.
I know that’s heresy to some adamant YECers, but that’s the way I see it.