[Right Wing Professor]

Interesting perspective. Of course, let me be the first to point out it's one man's opinion, and certainly not canonical.

[Right Wing Professor]

Ping-a-ling

[cripplecreek]

The fact that there is a Vatican astronomer does remind us where much western science began. It also reminds us that scientists, Christian and otherwise have been wrong about a lot of things and right about others.

[theDentist]

Considering we have no idea how long a "day" is in God's time, I can easily reconcile the earth's creation in 6 days to a scietific view of it taking billions of years by men's reckoning.

[Elpasser]

What a shameful apostate.

The Catholic Church has fallen so far!

[fizziwig]

Nice try Padre....but Creationism is not Paganism.

pa·gan (pgn) KEY

NOUN:

One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion.
One who has no religion.
A non-Christian.
A hedonist.
A Neo-Pagan.
ADJECTIVE:

Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.
Professing no religion; heathen.
Neo-Pagan.

---

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, from Late Latin pgnus, from Latin, country-dweller, civilian, from pgus, country, rural district; see pag- in Indo-European roots

OTHER FORMS:
pagan·dom (-dm) KEY (Noun), pagan·ish (Adjective), pagan·ism (Noun)

[Liberal Classic]

...a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Interesting.

[conservative physics]

Either God created the universe and Man or there is no God, it's that simple.

The details of how he did it, or how long it took, are irrelevant.

[Stingray51]

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods.

The point is not whether "nature gods" are responsible for natual events. It is whether God is responsible for (a) nature (by creating it), and (b) manifestly unnatural events such as the Incarnation of God the Son in a virgin mother and the Resurrection. If Christians are to believe in those two events, then I don't see how it could be paganism for them to also believe in "creationism". This brother should stick to astronomy.

[george wythe]

Now you tell me. After believing all these years that God created the dinosaurs 6,000 years ago, but the dinosaurs drowned about 4,000 years ago when they couldn't fit into Noah's Ark.

At least, I know that Noah's Ark was found by a CBS documentary crew.

[/s]

[Doctor Stochastic]

Well, being only ONE man's opinion does make it micro-canonical; macro-canonism has not been proved.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Creationism doesn't rise to the level of Paganism.

[Arkinsaw]

God has designed the Bible for his own purposes. He remains vague when he wants, he makes parables when he wants, he explains specifically when he wants, he includes poetry when he wants, he writes allegorically and symbolically when he wants. He does it for reasons. There are reasons why different versions of the gospel are included in the one book (to reach out with different angles of the same story for minds that think in different ways IMO).

To insist that the Bible must speak literally at all times and on all subjects is an attempt to limit an omnipotent and omnipresent God and bind him to literalism. He won't be bound. But people may bind themselves with it. He can write symbolically, allegorically, poetically, artistically, literally, or however he wants and needs for his own purposes and to reach and instruct different people at different times.

[Coyoteman]

Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance.

There's a tagline in there somewhere!

Speaking of knowlege, is this that famous tree...?

[agere_contra]

A "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He's right, and it is insanely destructive. Thomas Aquinas said the truth cannot contradict itself, and that no really proven truth can contradict other truth. A Christian has nothing to fear from science - as long as it IS science, and not assertion posing as science.

The evolutionary process really appears to be true* But ever since Darwin's day, unfortunately, it has been used like a crowbar to "prove" - or rather to assert - wildly unscientific claims that Mankind is simply another beast, ot that we have no free will, or There Is No God. This in turn sets off our sola scriptural FReepers who honourably - but mistakenly - feel that they must defend one literal exegesis of Genesis to the death.

*Certainly for all flora and fauna except man. There is an interesting lack of speciation in the fossil record of hominids up to and including "Lucy" which seems to indicate that something unique has happened in Man's case. But the fossil record is as yet too sparse to make supportable conclusions. I am confident that disinterested research will lead us into all Truth.

[after dark]

Pot calling kettle black.

The church should clean up its act, or the evangelicals will continue to gain on them.

Lies and name calling are the last acts of losers.

[Old Professer]

Too much "canon' fodder" already.

[RegulatorCountry]

Labelling a follower of your own belief "pagan," merely because that person insists on a literal interpretation of scripture is deceit. And who is the father of lies, according to the very same scripture that this man purports to follow?

[js1138]

I've been saying for a couple of weeks that ID is a form of animism. I noticed this when a freeper made an explicit reference to being able to see intelligence in cellular mechanisms.

I think a couple of our ID posters who like to quote Shapiro are pushing a form of animism.

[onedoug]

Too bad the "Vatican Astronomer" has evidently never heard of "relativity".

Gerald Schroeder, The Science Of God

[CobaltBlue]

I agree with the good Brother. Truth cannot contradict truth.