Studying Evolution in Georgia, Part II: Sicker stickers

[Kurgan]

The majority of Christians basically accept evolutionary theory and modern science (as far as they understand it). 1

 

Belief in "intelligent design" or "theistic evolution" are attempts to reconcile certain types of belief with modern science. Of course the religious side is based on faith, not scientific proof, so a scientists need not accept a certain belief system, etc.

 

 

That polls taken in America show that 150% of Americans believe that the earth is 6,000 years old or some other such rubbish doesn't matter.

 

1. The Catholic Church teaches that evolution is "more than a theory" and that the big bang probably happened. And since Catholics are the largest Christian church in the world, that's a lot of Christians siding with the "evolutionists" unless they're going against what the Pope says of course.

 

I can't speak for ALL other churches, but when you get down to it, the loud minority churches that denounce certain things and are politically active don't represent the views of all Christians. Yet anti-religious pundits love to jump on this and use it as a bludgeon against all religion. The so-called "mainline" churches, conservative as they might be on certain issues, are pretty open on the non-literal interpretation of Genesis. I could go on and on about Genesis, in fact, it seems that the original interpretations by the Church back in the early centuries WERE non-literal. So these "back to basics" YEC types I think are just plain misguided.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Leper Messiah

no i think the Bible does set out some sort of time span in its first book (Genesis) it lists the various generations of people it claims existed and how old they lived to be (800 aparently was not an uncommon age back in times that it conveniently cant be proved)

 

Now, wikipedia isn't a flawless source, but it gives a nice background on where Young Earth Creationism gets it's info. It's based on the interpretations of an Irish protestant Archbishop in the 17th century.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ussher

 

 

Personally I think the whole Young Earth Creationist thing comes directly from this guy's teachings. And his understand could have been launched by a mis-interpretation and heavy extrapolation from St. Augustine's writing in the 4th century (he wrote several interpretations of Genesis, ONE of which was called the "literal" interpretation of Genesis; note that it was just one of several possible interpretations, yet somebody obviously seized on this new idea and decided that it was the ONLY one).

 

I'm reading Augustine now so I'll let you know if I find anything interesting, but it might be awhile (he wrote a lot!). Suffice to say I think that YEC is bunk, and I see no reason to accept it as a religious person. For now I'm more of the mind of theistic evolution. However I don't accept evolution as a religious belief, but as a scientific theory. I allow room for advances in our understanding, so even if it was somehow proven false (unlikely as that might be), it wouldn't destroy my faith. The faith part, for me, is that God was ultimately responsible for the universe, that is, it wasn't just a random meaningless accident. And this still allows for humans to have a "personal relationship" with said deity through prayer, virtuous living, building a peaceful and just society and private & communal mystical experience.

 

Edit: It appears from the link above that the Venerable Bede (8th cent) and Scaliger (17th cent) also postulated similar "chronologies" but I haven't read their works to say for a fact how similar they are. I just know that Ussher is widely quoted as being the one with the dates.

 

The kicker seems to be that if this guy was correct, the world should have ended by now! Anyways...

 

So yes, teaching YEC in schools is a mistake. If you're going to do that, then you should also teach Intelligent Design, the creation myths of various other cultures, etc, in a RELATED section to show the cultural responses to Science, not as the science itself. It's okay for people to learn about these things, but it's not okay to eliminate the scientific facts as the majority of experts know them to be today in favor of one small set (or subset) of religion's teachings.