Graydon, I'm not disputing the reality of natural selection. Creationist oil geologists don't dispute the reality of oil, only its origins. Nor do I dispute the reality, and success, of natural selection as a medium of evolution, only the basis and origin of Nature. (And yes, I do believe some dinosaur, millions of years ago, gave his or her all so I can tootle about in my Taurus).
One of these days I'll read some Dawkins. Thanks for the reference.
It's not my intenet to turn this into a debate over theism versus pure randomness, which I think is beyond the original point of the posting...
Lee
Graydon, I have to agree with Avram's definition of a Darwinian literalist. Perhaps a better term on my part might have been "Darwinian fundamentalist" -- someone who believes in Darwinian evolution to the exclusion of other belief systems. To me, there are as many holes in evolutionary theory as there are in creationist theory. My 13-year-old son likes to quote someone (one of the great astronomers, I think) who said the chances of life starting out of some primodial soup are about as great as a tornado ripping through a junkyard and producing a working 747.
In the end, all I'm trying to say is that those who see things in black and white are rarely correct. My faith leads me to believe in an intelligent creator who is still at work in the world, and my eyes lead me to also believe that in some form evolution works and the earth has been here for billions of years, not just a few thousand. And if God does exist, and if he or she is powerful enough to create a universe, humans make a grave mistake in setting limits on what God can do.
All this about dinos on or off the ark, and nobody wants to talk about unicorns?
I've been reading Marcus Borg's "Reading the Bible Again For The First Time: Taking The Bible Seriously But Not Literally." He makes the distinction between "natural" and "conscious" literalism in interpreting the Bible. A natural literalist believes the Bible is literally true, taking the truth of the Bible for granted. Conscious literalists take nothing for granted; they insist on the literal interpretation of the Bible in the face of all contrary evidence -- as he writes, "it requires 'faith,' understood as believing things hard to believe."
(No, Erik, you're not the first to think about the order of creation. Borg talks about the creation story,.essentially saying the whole Bible, rather than being God's direct revelation to humanity, is humanity's response to the experience of God, and no one ever intended Genesis to be a scientific account of creation.)
Most modern literalists are conscious literalists -- they have to work at their belief, much as Darwinian literalists have to work at their belief in natural selection. Both sides require "faith" (as defined above) to sustain their beliefs. I think the only natural Bible literalists left in the Western world are children and people raised in sheltered circumstances. As a born-again Christian who finds literalism repugnant, I sometimes just want to give these people a good shake and say "God gave you BRAINS, you idiot! Open up and USE them!"
Merry Christmas.
Lee
Oh, Teresa, if those bombs were from Iraqi arsenals, wouldn't they be full of germs and nerve gas and stuff?
Oh, right, I forgot...nobody's found any of that stuff yet. Sorry...
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 5 |
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