First of all, know that I'm not critiquing anyone's particular faith. As much as I'm critiquing others' faiths, I'm critiquing my own.
Religion just baffles me. Some people just scratch their head wondering why so many people aren't religious anymore, but I know why: the rift between science and religion. Personally, I have no issue reconciling science and religion, but I am definitely in the minority on that one amongst the self-professed "religious." In Ohio, there is a bill that wants to force the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.
So, on a local TV station, we get a debate between two local high school science teachers: one is from the public school and the other is from a Baptist high school. Unsurprised, but still dismayed, I hear from the Baptist high school teacher that they teach creationism primarily, and their discussion of evolution is just in how to "debunk" it. Keep in mind that his belief is that the Earth is just 10,000 years old. Now I could see his reaction if the public schools' teaching of creationism was just to say how retarded it is...they'd have a fit.
So we get callers on the phone. Three out of four, of course, were creationists. The fourth brought up my viewpoint that the belief in evolution doesn't necessarily negate the existence of God; that God could have created the Earth in a span of billions of years. If you wish, a symbolic seven days, rather than a literal seven days. What did the Baptist high school teacher say in reply? That he was just "limiting God," basically dismissing him as a bad Christian.
Never mind that even the Bible doesn't even fully support the current creationist model if you actually read it thoroughly.
"Cain then left the LORD'S presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. Cain also became the founder of a city, which he named after his son Enoch." -- Genesis 4:16-17 (emphasis added)
Now if Adam and Eve, with their children, Cain and Abel, were the first humans, where did Cain's wife come from? Were the writers of Genesis sloppy? No. We've forgotten a very important perspective of Genesis: it was written under the belief of polytheism. Each culture was created under their own god. Hence, the Jews were created by Yahweh (God), the Philistines were created by Baal, etc.
"You shall not have other gods besides me." -- Exodus 20:3 That was a very important passage. If people were already monotheistic, what was the point of commanding that? So where did Cain's wife come from? Notice in Genesis 4:16, Cain is cast out of Eden and settles in Nod. His wife is from Nod, a "pagan" territory. Hence, his wife would have been "created" by the god of the people of Nod, as assumed by the writers. Genesis then forgets about Cain in the next chapter and continues on about the descendents of Seth, Adam and Eve's third child--hence, concerning themselves only with the Jewish lineage.
"Jews" are only maybe 10,000 years old, if you take the Bible literally, but that doesn't mean the Biblical writers didn't believe that the rest of the world didn't exist before them. The Garden of Eden, if I dare say, is a separate entity from Earth. A proverbial place of paradise--"Heaven"-- that, once Adam and Eve were kicked out, doesn't exist on our same plane of reality. Genesis isn't about the history of the world; it is about the history of "His chosen people," the Jews--a people born in paradise, but kicked out to settle amongst everyone else on Earth. Most of us here are not of Jewish decent; we descend from Gentile origins. Our ancestors were pagans that converted to Christianity centuries ago. Hence, we should not be concerned with ideas of Adam and Eve, etc., because we are not descendants of them, nor were we ever intended to be.
Heh...I'm not even remotely a creationist either. Evolution all the way. What do you think?
Melon
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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time
Religion just baffles me. Some people just scratch their head wondering why so many people aren't religious anymore, but I know why: the rift between science and religion. Personally, I have no issue reconciling science and religion, but I am definitely in the minority on that one amongst the self-professed "religious." In Ohio, there is a bill that wants to force the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.
So, on a local TV station, we get a debate between two local high school science teachers: one is from the public school and the other is from a Baptist high school. Unsurprised, but still dismayed, I hear from the Baptist high school teacher that they teach creationism primarily, and their discussion of evolution is just in how to "debunk" it. Keep in mind that his belief is that the Earth is just 10,000 years old. Now I could see his reaction if the public schools' teaching of creationism was just to say how retarded it is...they'd have a fit.
So we get callers on the phone. Three out of four, of course, were creationists. The fourth brought up my viewpoint that the belief in evolution doesn't necessarily negate the existence of God; that God could have created the Earth in a span of billions of years. If you wish, a symbolic seven days, rather than a literal seven days. What did the Baptist high school teacher say in reply? That he was just "limiting God," basically dismissing him as a bad Christian.
Never mind that even the Bible doesn't even fully support the current creationist model if you actually read it thoroughly.
"Cain then left the LORD'S presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. Cain also became the founder of a city, which he named after his son Enoch." -- Genesis 4:16-17 (emphasis added)
Now if Adam and Eve, with their children, Cain and Abel, were the first humans, where did Cain's wife come from? Were the writers of Genesis sloppy? No. We've forgotten a very important perspective of Genesis: it was written under the belief of polytheism. Each culture was created under their own god. Hence, the Jews were created by Yahweh (God), the Philistines were created by Baal, etc.
"You shall not have other gods besides me." -- Exodus 20:3 That was a very important passage. If people were already monotheistic, what was the point of commanding that? So where did Cain's wife come from? Notice in Genesis 4:16, Cain is cast out of Eden and settles in Nod. His wife is from Nod, a "pagan" territory. Hence, his wife would have been "created" by the god of the people of Nod, as assumed by the writers. Genesis then forgets about Cain in the next chapter and continues on about the descendents of Seth, Adam and Eve's third child--hence, concerning themselves only with the Jewish lineage.
"Jews" are only maybe 10,000 years old, if you take the Bible literally, but that doesn't mean the Biblical writers didn't believe that the rest of the world didn't exist before them. The Garden of Eden, if I dare say, is a separate entity from Earth. A proverbial place of paradise--"Heaven"-- that, once Adam and Eve were kicked out, doesn't exist on our same plane of reality. Genesis isn't about the history of the world; it is about the history of "His chosen people," the Jews--a people born in paradise, but kicked out to settle amongst everyone else on Earth. Most of us here are not of Jewish decent; we descend from Gentile origins. Our ancestors were pagans that converted to Christianity centuries ago. Hence, we should not be concerned with ideas of Adam and Eve, etc., because we are not descendants of them, nor were we ever intended to be.
Heh...I'm not even remotely a creationist either. Evolution all the way. What do you think?
Melon
------------------
"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time