Datheron

Yay, my first post!

Anyway, after reading numerous posts on this board and in this forum in general, I've come across a lot of arguments by Christians on how the Bible's confirmation of science and modern morals only serves to validate its authority. It's strange, because I had always thought Christianity to be a conforming religion, one whose teachings are readily based upon what is popular at the time. Lemme see if I can explain this...

For example, an argument has been brought up where Genesis is an accurate account of the Big Bang, albeit a fit figurative. What I wonder is whether 15th century Christians had an inkling of that idea; better yet, whether they accepted anything beyond the 6-day creation at the time.

Similarly, moral standards are also conformed by majority rule. Christians have fully tried to justify slavery by its advocation in the Bible in the 18th century; its anti-feministic stance was also justified, although both now have been revoked because modern society sees them as immoral.

It's rather a modern development that Apologists and so-called "scientific" Christians try to make Biblical assertions conform to scientific theories and discoveries, but the pattern of having "science discover it first, or society accept it first, then find out that Bible advocates it as well" happening repeatedly over history and time does seems more than a coincidence. The popularity of evolution has prompted a Christian theory (I can't say how many Christians believe in it, though) of micro-evolution that hopes to retain some facet of creationism within. This tactic, used time and time again, doesn't seem to present a God that "knows all" or a God whose morals cannot change: to me, it presents a group of believers that will do whatever they can, twist whatever they can, to further validate the inerrancy of the Bible.

One more point. If the above hypothesis is true, then wouldn't that be the "key" that atheists ask for when demanding how Christians can determine what's literal or figurative in the Bible? Once again, this struck me particularly hard in the creation fallacy debates, where Christians have claimed that the obvious 6-day creation was actually figurative language for billions of years of creation, where each "day" is actually eons, and the incorrect order of which stars/planets/land/water/life is formed is all lumped under "figurative". It doesn't sound that convincing.

(If this topic has been thoroughly covered before, or that it's so blantantly obvious that no one spends time covering it, then I apologize. I thought that since so many Christian arguments fall into the same pattern, maybe it hasn't been discussed yet)