Wolfmann
Member
Hello
I wish to correct the major mistake where someone said Darwin was a liberal. Charles Darwin was a deacon in the Anglican Church and a life time member of the Conservative Party in England. If you are going to post something as fact, please make sure it is otherwise all you accomplish is to make yourself look foolish.
Also why a church that vehemently opposes abortion under any circumstances, embraces creationism, opposes stem cell research and agrees with almost every social dogma of American Conservatives would be considered liberal. the Catholic Church. Again, check your facts.
Almost no modern evolutionary biologist gives a damn what Darwin said. His research was over 170 years ago and was extremely limited. Today we use DNA, historical records, physiological and anatomical analysis to help in evolutionary research. Too many people get hung up on Darwin's apes. The modern scientific definition of natural evolution (which is what people get stressed about) is "The ability of an organism to successfully adapt to its environment". It doesn't matter whether we are talking about mold or elephants, a minute or a milenium the science and principle are the same.
But this is not the point of my post. Contrary to most of those who oppose evolution over 85% of us believe in God, a supreme being or whatever word you wish to choose. Almost all of these people belong and attend a religious denomination and about half of those belong to a conservative denomination. For example my teacher was a baptist deacon. In my opinion it is not possible to believe in a universe and not believe in some type of supreme being who is spirit and is omnipresent and omnipowerful. Something had to start the ball rolling. And this brings me to my point.
Many conservative persons of faith (not limited to Christians) believe that their holy book (for Christians = Bible and in this case the Old Testament) is the literal word of God and that's fine for them and I will not comment on that. Most serious biblical scholars including the Society of Biblical literature view the Old Testament as a compilation of historical narratives and other stories assembled over a long period of time. They cite that some Old Testament stories are based on what appears to be historical facts the most famous of these is the plagues of Egypt. They also note that over time and many translations the old testament (Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek, to Latin the German and then finally English) some Old Testament stories have been misinterpreted such as the crossing of the Reed Sea for the Red Sea.
But the story of creation is very interesting. Modern man cannot view this story from their perspective, it must view based on the time it was written and who it was written for. In ancient biblical times the people of what we now call the Middle East were ignorant nomadic herdsmen and these people were extremely superstitious. To them lightening was a sign from their god and a comet foretold doom. Among these people were others who were probably priests or someone with some amount of knowledge. How would you explain to these nomads how the world and universe was created and how everything including them came to be. The answer from what I have read was what we call Genesis.
Now if you can accept this as possible then please continue reading. IF not stop here.
If the generally accepted events of the Big Bang are looked at and subsequent creation of the cosmos including earth and boiled down to its base form making it understandable to a child then the events of the Big Bang and the story of Genesis are remarkably similar. You would also have to accept that a day in the "life" of God does not equal 24 hours but could be millions or billions of years.
If I would have explained the big bang to my children when they were very young I feel that Genesis would have been a good way to do it.
I apologize for this posts length.
Thanks
Wolfman 24
I wish to correct the major mistake where someone said Darwin was a liberal. Charles Darwin was a deacon in the Anglican Church and a life time member of the Conservative Party in England. If you are going to post something as fact, please make sure it is otherwise all you accomplish is to make yourself look foolish.
Also why a church that vehemently opposes abortion under any circumstances, embraces creationism, opposes stem cell research and agrees with almost every social dogma of American Conservatives would be considered liberal. the Catholic Church. Again, check your facts.
Almost no modern evolutionary biologist gives a damn what Darwin said. His research was over 170 years ago and was extremely limited. Today we use DNA, historical records, physiological and anatomical analysis to help in evolutionary research. Too many people get hung up on Darwin's apes. The modern scientific definition of natural evolution (which is what people get stressed about) is "The ability of an organism to successfully adapt to its environment". It doesn't matter whether we are talking about mold or elephants, a minute or a milenium the science and principle are the same.
But this is not the point of my post. Contrary to most of those who oppose evolution over 85% of us believe in God, a supreme being or whatever word you wish to choose. Almost all of these people belong and attend a religious denomination and about half of those belong to a conservative denomination. For example my teacher was a baptist deacon. In my opinion it is not possible to believe in a universe and not believe in some type of supreme being who is spirit and is omnipresent and omnipowerful. Something had to start the ball rolling. And this brings me to my point.
Many conservative persons of faith (not limited to Christians) believe that their holy book (for Christians = Bible and in this case the Old Testament) is the literal word of God and that's fine for them and I will not comment on that. Most serious biblical scholars including the Society of Biblical literature view the Old Testament as a compilation of historical narratives and other stories assembled over a long period of time. They cite that some Old Testament stories are based on what appears to be historical facts the most famous of these is the plagues of Egypt. They also note that over time and many translations the old testament (Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek, to Latin the German and then finally English) some Old Testament stories have been misinterpreted such as the crossing of the Reed Sea for the Red Sea.
But the story of creation is very interesting. Modern man cannot view this story from their perspective, it must view based on the time it was written and who it was written for. In ancient biblical times the people of what we now call the Middle East were ignorant nomadic herdsmen and these people were extremely superstitious. To them lightening was a sign from their god and a comet foretold doom. Among these people were others who were probably priests or someone with some amount of knowledge. How would you explain to these nomads how the world and universe was created and how everything including them came to be. The answer from what I have read was what we call Genesis.
Now if you can accept this as possible then please continue reading. IF not stop here.
If the generally accepted events of the Big Bang are looked at and subsequent creation of the cosmos including earth and boiled down to its base form making it understandable to a child then the events of the Big Bang and the story of Genesis are remarkably similar. You would also have to accept that a day in the "life" of God does not equal 24 hours but could be millions or billions of years.
If I would have explained the big bang to my children when they were very young I feel that Genesis would have been a good way to do it.
I apologize for this posts length.
Thanks
Wolfman 24
