Evolution is a Threat to Biblical Literalism, Not a Belief in God

[FDRLincoln]

Some points in my mind after reading the discussion about evolution and intelligent design.

1) I believe in evolution. I believe that the universe is more than 10 billion years old, that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and that Darwinian evolution explains how life developed and changed here.

2) I believe that the scientific vision of how the universe formed (Big Bang, etc.) is essentially correct, although even the best scientists admit we don't have all the details worked out yet.

3) I also believe in God. Evolution/big bang, etc., is not a threat to my belief in God.

4) Evolution/science IS a threat to Biblical literalism. But atheists need to remember that Biblical literalism is NOT the same thing as belief in God. I don't believe in God because of the Bible. My God is bigger than the Bible, and my faith is certainly strong enough to accomodate (and include!) the scientific view of the world.

[Turn CO Blue]

1. Totally agree with your points.

God is bigger than the Bible, and our small understanding.

[Spiffarino]

2. That's where the fundies lost me

Why do they place such limitations on God? Do they believe Him to be weak?

It's apostasy and they don't even see it.

Edit: I've nominated this for GP. This is something that must be understood about fundamentalists: They are placing limitations on the Almighty.

[skids]

27. It's more history than actual theology.

What passes for "theology" among the literalists is far short of fulfilling the definition of the word. But to play lip service to their so-called "theology," if you float the idea that evolution and creationism are compatible to these people you'll be accused of "detracting from God." Their general line of reasoning is that you are the one placing limitation on God by saying God could not have created the earth in 6 days like the bible says. The fact that they limit God's "days" to conventional human understanding of the term doesn't make them guilty of the same thing in their minds. Heck the very fact that they claim to understand the ways of God in such detail doesn't even seem to set off the "mysterious ways" alarm for some reason.

They have complete conviction that they are defenders of the true interperatation, which has been passed down through the ages flawlessly, directly to them. Nevermind how many times it was translated. Nevermind that new documents with comparable archeological pedigree like the Gospel of Thomas keep turning up near the Dead Sea and such. Nevermind that the many facets of the interperatation that they hold true is under 200 years old and was concocted in the American midwest by people who likely had ulterior motives involving village politics.

And don't even go near the possible compatibilities of basic Christian philisophies with pantheism/panenthiesm. Not even Catholics will touch that with a ten foot incense stencher.

If they did study the history of their interperatation, their minds might be changed, realising just how many middlemen are coming between them and the words of their own savior. But somehow I doubt it. Several of the people they trust to interperate the Bible for them get called out as psychopathic sex offenders and greedy con-artists every year. It never seems to make them think twice about trusting a fallable being the be the go-between between them and the somehow-incapable-of-speaking-directly-to-his-sheep all powerful.

Honestly it's no wonder they are crazy. So many contradictions to rationize, even before they get to their mundane routines which include in many cases activities completely at odds with some of the most fundamental Christian ideals.

As far as them finding the culture of the coasts so alien, that I don't blame them for. I mean we have drug ads on TV for a herpes sore suppression medication that depict a woman going on a date with a completely unwitting guy, with a tiny disclaimer somewhere in the middle of the add saying "oh, BTW, you can still spread herpes." I mean, I'm pretty much as liberal as a Christian can get and still be a Christian, and I try to be nonjudgemental, but if you want to know why "values" are such an issue -- shit like that even gets my ire up. I couldn't imagine what it must do to them.

[Patiod]

3. I think that's why Catholics have no problem with evolution

Never being big on biblical literalism.

I remember a younger nun in 1st or 2nd-grade CCD (catch-up classes for us poor pathetic waifs who were in public school instead of Catholic School where we belonged) telling us that the Bible wasn't MEANT to be taken literally - Adam and Eve were just a parable, or a story to help us understand how things worked. Jesus used them all the time.

The Pope has said there's no problem believing in evolution and God.

That's why a lot of fundamentalists mistrust Catholics - they don't buy into the "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that's final".

[flyingfysh]

6. the Catholics got burned by literalism

They were very literal when they put Galileo on trial, and got burned as a result.

Think whatever else you like about the Catholics, but they have a long institutional memory. They may well have seen Darwin as another Galileo-type fiasco in the making, and wisely decided to avoid it.

[HockeyMom]

10. Correct

I spent 12 years in Catholic School. Basically, they said God created evolution. God created the world in 7 days? Well, they said, what is the concept of TIME to God? The term seven days is a concept of man. Seven days could have been 7 millennium in God's time frame. They told us that, if human beings evolved from lower life forms, once God placed a soul in that body (even if an ape) it was no longer an ape but a human being. Where and how that body came into being is unimportant, it was the soul that mattered.

As the last poster said, I, too, was taught that the Bible was not to be taken literally. It was meant to teach a LESSON; a parable. It did not matter if the actual stories were true or not.

I can imagine the Fundies would be HORRIFIED at the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the Bible. Not to mention the fact that, Catholics are banned from reading the King James Version to begin with.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

12. I can imagine the Fundies would be HORRIFIED

at the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the Bible

Horrified is to put it mildly.

And that's the thing that most people, who have not been exposed to a fundamentalist environment can't understand, is just how completely psychotic they really are. But when the bible says seven days, by god that's what it means, 7 days. There is no room for debate on the matter in the fundamentalist world. Interestingly enough I have almost finished reading the Qur’an and even the Qur'an admits that mans conception of time is irrelevant to god and that 7 days could mean any expanse of time.

But let me assure you from growing up in a fundamentalist church in the 60's that one would have been better off to come into there and proclaim to be a communist as opposed to being a catholic. When Kennedy was elected they were just sure the apocalypse was upon us.

[rocktivity]

16. My Sunday school teacher told us about how Jesus sent pigs off a cliff

when I was nine, and "that's why Jews don't eat pork."

"But if they went over the cliff, and died," I asked, "didn't whatever Jesus sent into the pigs die, too, so that other pigs are stiff safe to eat?" Dead silence, hee hee!

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[FlaGranny]

18. That's hysterical!! n/t

[pelagius]

31. That just cracks me up!

So resonant of the nutty things I was taught as a young fundie!

[Freedom_from_Chains]

4. Not just literalism

But to the institution of religion, the church, itself.

I read an article awhile back that was talking about how Columbus’s voyage in 1492 is what brought about the enlightenment and the reformation. The thought being that by his demonstrating that the world was not flat, as the church maintained, it called into question all other alleged truths of the Christian religion. An undertaking that up until that point, people had been unwilling to do.

[FDRLincoln]

5. depends on what you mean by "church"

It depends on what you mean by "church." I grew up as an Episcopalian, and most Episcopalians don't have a problem with evolution. Evolution has done little to harm the Roman Catholic Church, which accepts evolution.

It IS a threat to the Southern Baptists and other denominations that support Biblical literalism.

[pelagius]

32. The Episcopal (Anglican) Church...

...is thoroughly comfortable with the Enlightenment, since so many of its clergy and members were the leading thinkers in that movement!

[Warpy]

17. Nah, Marco Polo had already done that, 200 years earlier

when he traveled to China via the Silk Road and discovered a great civilization that was light years ahead of Europe and had developed a great ethical foundation without ever having heard of the Church.

That's what triggered the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Columbus's voyage into Empire only stuck the last nail in the literalist's coffin.

Now the literalists are back. One wonders whether the immense leaps in scientific knowledge have left them all totally baffled to the point that all they can do is retreat into a past that never was.

The same thing happened in Islam. They had a golden age of scientific discovery, then were forced to look backwards into dead letter literalism and the culture stopped dead.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

20. How true

The same thing happened in Islam. They had a golden age of scientific discovery, then were forced to look backwards into dead letter literalism and the culture stopped dead.

[Stunster]

23. I don't think so

when he traveled to China via the Silk Road and discovered a great civilization that was light years ahead of Europe and had developed a great ethical foundation without ever having heard of the Church.

Aquinas taught that ethics doesn't derive from Church teaching, but from natural reason. So I don't think it would be a problem for the Church in the Middle Ages to discover that the Chinese had developed ethics. Even Saint Paul talks about conscience and the light of natural reason as being sufficient to know moral truths.

Also, the Church accepted the Copernican system long before Galileo came along. What got Galileo into trouble was not the Copernican system, but his insistence that this meant the Bible had to be interpreted a certain way. This smacked of 'private judgement and interpretation of Scripture', and thus of what the Church deemed a Protestant heresy. At the time, Galileo had not proven his theory conclusively. He was permitted to teach it as a hypothesis. Being an arrogant SOB, that wasn't good enough for Galileo. He insisted that his theory was right, and all competitor theories were wrong, and that therefore the Scripture had to be interpreted along the lines he suggested. Well, that was to set himself up as an authority in science and in Biblical interpretation, and hence as an authority about what the Church should teach.

That didn't sit well with the pope, nor did Galileo's disobedience to the injunction only to teach his theory as a theory, nor did his attempt to humiliate the pope as a simpleton.

Anyway, Galileo was wrong. The sun is not the center of the universe. Or if it is, it is so only in the sense that everywhere is the center. Including the Earth. The Big Bang happened 'everywhere' and everything has been rushing away from everything else. So, everywhere can be viewed as the center. Alternatively, we can say there is no center. In which case, it makes as much sense to say the Sun revolves around the Earth as vice-versa. Heliocentrism is only true relative to reference frames that are less than the whole universe.

[Dead_Parrot]

25. Ahem...

Also, the Church accepted the Copernican system long before Galileo came along.

Not quite - they let it pass without comment since it was a thought experiment: Galileo came up with the evidence in 1610, so the Vatican responded by adding Copernicus' De Revolutionibus to the index of prohibited works in 1616.
Galileo decided to publish his findings anyway in 1632, thinking the church wouldn't do anything. Wrong!

Anyway, Galileo was wrong. The sun is not the center of the universe. Or if it is, it is so only in the sense that everywhere is the center

Yes, Galileo does seem to pre-empt Einstien on that one:

"Motion, in so far as It is and acts as motion, to that extent exists relatively to things that lack it; and among things which all share equally in any motion, it does not act, and is as if It did not exist. Thus the goods with which a ship is laden leaving Venice, pass by Corfu, by Crete, by Cyprus and go to Aleppo. Venice, Corfu, Crete, etc. stand still and do not move with the ship; but as to the sacks, boxes, and bundles with which the boat is laden and with respect to the ship itself, the motion from Verflice to Syria is as nothing, and in no way alters their relation among themselves" - GG

http://webexhibits.org/calendars/year-text-Galileo.html

[WeirdHoward]

7. God works in mysterious ways

For someone to claim a book tells all about God, or that they know God's will, is an arrogant affront to the spiritually enlightened. To accept God's creation as it is presented to us (round world, evolution and all), and to accept that we learn more about it everyday is to accept life, and be open to further enlightenment.

Blessings to all,

Howard

[papau]

8. totally agree :-)

:-)

[rwenos]

9. "Inerrantism"

The doctrine of which you speak is "inerrantism" -- the belief that the Bible is the literal word of God, spoken through Jesus and reported by his disciples.

This doctrine is very widely believed in the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, and certain Methodist denominations. The Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Greek and other Eastern Orthodox, and of course the Roman Catholic Church, don't have very many adherents to the doctrine.

Living in LA, I see a fair amount of "La Iglesia Apostolica de San Juan Bautista" storefront churches, indicating Calvinist Protestantism on the march in Latin America. Developing . . .

[fasttense]

15. Wait just a minute

This inerrantism is not in the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist nor Methodist denomination because None Of them take Jesus's word as literal. My biggest problem with all of them is that they pick and chose what they want to take as literal.

The bible says "the lamb of God" all of those denominations are willing to believe that the lamb of God is Not a little lamb that comes to earth. Jesus says "this is my body." None of them believe the host actually turns to Jesus's body. The bible says "it is more difficult for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of the needle" (Yes, I know Jesus was referring to a specific gate but it was still a difficult task.) Yet numerous preachers of those denominations have stacked the deck against themselves by acquiring millions in the selling of religion. What about the four corners of the world (that's why the earth is flat)? Where are the preachers about this corner issue?

And yet the one time Jesus ever showed anger and outrage was in the Temple when the money lenders were selling religion. I just shake my head. If people would truly read the bible, they wouldn't be so easily fooled by these religions.

[ktowntennesseedem]

28. Southern Baptists DO hold inerrancy as a basic doctrine.

At least lately they do. However, as you pointed out, they do pick and choose easily defended passages, and either overlook the troubling spots, or turn the discussion away from the passage and against the person casting doubt on God's word. Inerrancy is only a tool used by those in power to control the masses, a simple, one-word term that sums up everything the conservative movement is about; those who embrace it do so for power, those who doubt it or try in vain to explain a better way to look at the Bible (using far more than one word!) are easily branded as liberals.

By the way, type the word "inerrancy" when using microsoft word sometime, and see what the suggested word is when the spellcheck kicks in!

[RUDUing2]

30. SB's include biblical inerrancy as part of their covenant.

the Southern Baptist Convention stated in part: "For Southern Baptists, inerrancy means that the original biblical text was composed precisely as God inspired it and intended it to be because of God's superintendence: not just the thought comes from God, but every word with every inflection, every verse and line, and every tense of the verb, every number of the noun, and every little particle are regarded as coming from God. Scripture is 'God-breathed,' and God does not breathe falsehood, so the text is faithful and true in all it affirms, including the miracle accounts, the attributed authors, and the historical narratives. The 1978 and 1982 Chicago statements on biblical inerrancy are representative of this doctrine." 3
and
Some conservative Christians believe that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by apostles with those names. The Southern Baptist Convention required its employees to sign a loyalty oath which commits them to this belief. They also believe that all of the books of the Christian Scriptures which state that they were written by St. Paul were actually written by him.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerran5.htm

The Chicago Statements on Biblical Inerrancy
I. SUMMARY STATEMENT

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: It is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited of disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church. http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/chicago.htm

[yellowdogintexas]

24. NOT the United Methodist Demonination!!!!!

There is a Wesleyan Methodist branch that MAY uphold inerrantism, but I have been a Methodist all my life and the lack of belief in inerrantism was one of the main things that made us different from the Baptists, Church of Christ, and others.


There may be individual Methodists who uphold inerrantism and there may even be a few United Methodist congregations ...Methodism is a giant umbrella, like the Democratic party you know.


However, mainstream Methodism and the official position is that the Bible is not inerrant.

You do make some good statements about inerrantism and its effects, however.

[realisticphish]

11. thank you!

:thumbsup:

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[MuseRider]

13. Thank you.

You have just articulated something that I have had trouble putting into words. This is helpful.

[cruadin]

14. I agree with your points. I am a firm believer in God, but...

it is a God of MY understanding. There is no conflict whatsoever with the lessons of modern science and my conception of a supreme being. I don't subscribe to the teachings of any specific religion or sect.

I rarely post to threads touching on this issue because there is so much open hostility and condescending snobbery expressed towards people of faith. The usual tactic is to reiterate the demented ravings of some lunatic fundie and then say, "Well, if you believe in God, then you must agree with this asshole."

There are people who profess a belief in God who are absolute fruitcakes, just as there are avowed atheists who are intolerant, narrow-minded bigots, and neither extreme of the theological spectrum has anything useful to offer in a civil discourse.

[mzmolly]

19. EGzactickaly!

;)

[Stunster]

21. Some things I believe

1) I believe in evolution. I believe that the universe is more than 10 billion years old, that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and that Darwinian evolution explains how life developed and changed here.

I believe in evolution. I believe in genetic variation and natural selection.

I also believe that life is the product of intelligent design by God and that human beings were intended by God.

I believe in the existence of watches. I believe that watches come about by natural bodies and other matter moving in accordance with the laws of nature. And I believe that bodies moving in accordance with the laws of nature to produce watches is evidence that watches are intelligently designed.

[smoogatz]

22. Any poet could tell you

That trying to find a single, literal meaning in metaphor is missing the point.

[Hidden Stillness]

26. A God Too Complex for Our Thought

I think as soon as you start taking it literally, then it disgraces the whole thing and it stops being a religion. You then totally cover it over with your own presumptuousness, and think you know what it means. It is not a religion anymore if its meaning is not a mystery coming from God, but instead now an opinion or a claim coming from you. You might even say it now has no more sacredness or holiness than your love of sports or music, has lost its center, and become just your "world-view." This is the great task, of course, trying to understand and clarify, and no one knows it as it is to God; but you have to try to get your own distortion out of it. People who claim to be "taking it literally," (their way of trying to be beyond criticism for whatever they believe), are usually only dressing up opinions they already had, and are often not even particularly religious. Witness how many times Bible quotes are used to oppress women, yet those who quote it that way, toward worldly ends, never strike you, even slightly, as saintly.

About the anti-Protestantism on this thread: Protestants invented the concept of the secular world, an existence that can be considered as somehow not "in God," and the first humanists were not secular or atheists but Protestants such as Erasmus, who was a great hero to my Mom. Also, for every Protestant who takes the Bible "literally," there is a Catholic who believes the Pope or a priest is "infallible" and therefore "taken literally," not to mention Muslims who don't dare change a word of the Quran, or they will be "innovating."

The real God is too complicated, profound, utterly beyond us, even unlike us, for us to be able to grasp it or have an accurate thought. Even the ordinary created world is impossible to be thought of, because as soon as you really analyze this thing, you realize that all of your thoughts are not really direct comprehensions of the other, but opinion statements coming from yourself. It is sometimes the work of a lifetime to try to understand anything as it really is, and these are just the ordinary things around us all. The real teaching of God is fluid, tailored to all, so all will be welcome at the table and all will belong, and therefore, it was so multi-faceted that it cannot be one single meaning or it would not be alive and ever the basis of all.

The poster fasttense (#15) makes the point that they actually do not take it all literally but just jump around and make up whatever they want and have it mean whatever they want. This is a good point. As a matter of fact, if people had taken the Bible literally, they would've read that God "made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," (2 Corinthians 3:6), which is telling you literally that you can't take the Bible literally!

[VegasWolf]

29. That is good for you. Too many seem threatened in their belief

systems. I personally do not believe in a God because
I do not believe in a hell.

[pelagius]

34. Believe/Disbelief in hell *does not equal* Belief/Disbelief in God

If you are stating that you find belief in eternal punishment does not jibe with your understanding of a loving god, then you're in good company with many Christians who are not only theists, but believe God became incarnate in Jesus Christ.

[pelagius]

33. Biblical literalism/inerrancy is idolotry

Literalists and ierranctists deify and worship a book over the Living God.