darstec

Why that is easy, Mark used the Past Tense (Aorist) sometimes. The past is history. Besides, do you really think Mark would make up things about god's son after seeing all those zombies rising from their graves and holy water hadn't been invented yet? [I realize he forgot to mention them, but he was probably too scared to remember.]:devil3:

Gamera

You've confused literalism with historical Christianity. Not only is Christianity not dependent on literalism, but I would say they are contradictory. Indeed, the early church rejected literalism, as the writings of Origen show.

To put your mind at rest, I'm a Christian and I don't think the world is 6,000 years old, I think the theory of evolution is valid, and I think Genesis is a metaphorical text about spiritual relationships, not biology. Further about 99% of the Christians in the world agree with me. Literalism is a late 19th century development that only afflicts a small portion of the American church, who are arguably not Christians, but just a political arm of the rightwing.

So got at the literalists all you want. I thank you for it. But don't confuse that with anything remotely Christian.

Apikorus

I don't see how this is consistent with the fact that roughly 44% of Americans believe that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." (
survey results). More recent survey results (here) reveal that 55% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form.

White evangelicals (77 percent), weekly churchgoers (74 percent) and conservatives (64 percent), are mostly likely to say God created humans in their present form. (link)

I suspect that Gamera's views on evolution place him in the minority of American Christians.

Kosh

What I've found is that they'll all claim that stance, but when you start pressing them on it, they suddenly start backing all the OT stories. Eden, Noah, etc. It seems that most people now realize it's not PC to wear fundyism on your shoulder, so they go under cover.

Gamera

Well press me all you like. I don't think Genesis has anything to do with biology, geology or any scientific endeavor. That's why we have science texts books, and Genesis isn't one.

Further, I would say not only does Genesis not assert some special creation that is evident in the impirical world, but it could not without essentially violating the central theme of the bible: Faith. Weirdly, if the literalists are right and God made the world 6K years ago, and it's there for all to see (were it not for the "conspiracy" of Darwinists!), then you wouldn't need faith to believe in God. All you'd need is a good geology background, and voila, we have a 6K year old earth, with complex life, and God is proven. But if you prove God, you don't need faith, and you've just thrown out the core teaching of the bible, OT and NT.

I find it ironic that these fundies are the greatest enemy of the very scripture they purport to uphold.

Gamera

Fortunately American Christians, and their deviation into literalism, represent a small minority of the planets 1 billion Christians, who have more sense both scientifically and exegetically.

But I wonder if the 44% doesn't include a lot of simply ignorant people, Christian or otherwise.

Apikorus

The situation in Europe isn't quite as striking as in the U.S., but nonsense like creationism and "intelligent design" still hold significant sway: BBC poll results.

The Christian center-of-mass is shifting away from Europe. I don't know of any creation/evolution belief polling in Africa or Korea. African Catholics, in general, are significantly more conservative than their American counterparts.

Gamera

Depressing, but I expect that many of the ID proponents are nonreligous, and are simply being duped by the religious groups that promote such nonsense. Evolutionary theory is hard for many people to accept, not just for religious reasons, but for cultural reasons, played upon by the bad faith discourse of the religious right.

FatherMithras

You mean like claiming that miracles happened in the absence of any supporting historical records or the fact there's no indication the writings claimed to be eyewitness testimony are in fact such? You've not shown a single piece of evidence, only shown the assertions of evangelists. Hardly the consensus of the scholars. Read about the documentary hypotehsis maybe?

Doug Shaver

The mere fact that Dr. Greenleaf says so doesn't make it so. Neither does the mere fact that you agree with him.