Evolution != Atheism (re: the Rejection of Theism in Evolution)

Sorry but that's simply not the case. Jesus quoted the OT in the same manner as he used parables.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You do realize that other portions of science, like modern astronomy, also directly or indirectly reject literal Biblical descriptions?The same issue we are facing now with evolution, has occured in the past with other scripture. Heliocentric theory is an example of this, and was equally felt by religious people that its acceptance would be an end to belief and spitting in the eye of God. Ultimately evidence won out, and now it is taken by most people that the contrary scriptural statements are parable or poetics.Unless you are contending that heliocentric theory is wrong and antiChristian, I am unsure how you choose evolution as any less correct than heliocentric theory.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What is not the case and what do you mean by: "Jesus quoted the OT the same way he used parables"?

I find no indication in the Bible that Jesus considered the OT to be literally true. He used references to parts of the Torah and Tanaka just as he used parables. For example, consider the parable of the two houses. Does it matter if there was, or was not, two houses, one built on sand and the other on bedrock? No!

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Christ quoted the OT.
He told parables.What is your point?To quote a document such as: 3 Some Pharisees approached Him to test Him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?" 4 "Haven't you read," He replied, "that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female, 5 and He also said: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? Matthew 19:3-5Shows a literal interpretation of the OT.And parables had a specific purpose as well: 10 Then the disciples came up and asked Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" 11 He answered them, "To know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. 12 For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 For this reason I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. 14 In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will listen and listen, yet never understand; and you will look and look, yet never perceive. 15 For this people's heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn back--and I would cure them
Matthew 13:10-15So parables served a particular purpose and should be literally understand as stories that give a message in ways that cause people to search for deaper truths of the kingdom. Notice, too, that in these verses He again quotes the OT, showing again how much authority He gave to the ancient scriptures.So, in summary, to say one believes in something, while at the same time saying that they believe something that was spoken by the person that they put their faith in, is obviously a contradiction.Which is exactly what someone does when they say they believe evolution to be true, (which states that, in various ways, that God did not make everything as complete wholes from the beginning, but rather everything we see today has evolved), while at the same time saying I believe Jesus Christ is who He said He was according to what is found in the New Testament, would be to say that Jesus was wrong about quoting the OT and parts of the OT cannot be taken literally, but the parts that do say He is the messiah are true. Can you say the contradiction? This is why there are those who would say that you cannot say I believe Jesus to be the Christ spoken of in the OT and NT, but I believe He was mistaken about literally interpreting the Genesis account of creation, because that would be making Jesus out to be either a liar or imperfect, which would disqualify Him as the Christ, which is exactly what a "christian" who believes evolution to be true is doing.

"Heliocentric theory" as you call it, if my memory serves me correctly, was the idea that the sun, not the earth was the center of the solar system.The idea that the earth was the center of the solar system, as proposed by Aristotle, had become the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.Of course we know that later, this was shown to be incorrect by Copernicus and Galileo. The problem was not what science discovered contradicting the bible, but what science discovered contradicted what the Roman Catholic church at the time held to be true. It was more of a political fight than anything else.So, as you can see, the two are very different situations, one being: atheistic evolution v. theism and the other being: Aristotelian science v. Copernican science.

You need to freshen up on your history. While you are correct that it was the RCC doing the fighting, and they certainly did have issues of clinging to specific Greek authors, this is still much the same as the fight going on today.1) The idea that the earth was the center was not just Aristotelian (actually it is referred to as Ptolemeic), it is within the Bible if you take it literally. At the time they were pointing to scripture, which you can still find today, which suggest that the earth does not move, and that the rest of the things in the sky are the ones in motion around us. Here is a link to an article on the subject of modern geocentrism and how it is tied to creatonism or biblical literalism. You will see that I am not just making this up... Xians are.I am unsure how you posit this as a "political" fight, when Galileo was friends with the pope and even wrote a book for the church on the subject. He was blasted for not adhering to and supporting scripture, not Aristotle. There are some scholars who suggest it was his defiance of papal orders that did him in, but reports from the inquisition only discuss heresy.Once the totality of evidence made terracentric theories untenable, the church and those finally having to face reality demoted the scripture from literal fact to fanciful description not necessary for belief in God.Here is a quote from Robert Bellarmine (a church official at galileo's time) on the possibility of heliocentrism and what it would mean for biblical literalism... 2) Today a group of people are making the same type of argument... that literal interpretation must be upheld... and appeal to certain ancient Greek philosophers should be viewed as authorities on the way science be conducted.Thus the comparison of events is almost 1:1. There were other schisms between science and the Bible as well, but again they were written off the same way. We are repeating history here. Evolution has nothing to do with atheism, other than atheists can use it without fear of contradicting their own metaphysical beliefs. Theists may as us it without fear as well unless they have metaphysical or historical beliefs which are contradictory.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

To understand Jesus' discussions with the Pharisees you need to understand the Talmudic tradition. It's time for you to stop and examine the Talmud (I know that's far too much for most folk to consider and don't expect you to become a Talmudic Scholar but rather to understand what is being done.) Jesus is using analogy and it doesn't matter if it is a literal reference or not. In the same discusssions Jesus goes on to talk about a donkey falling in a ditch on the sabbath. It doesn't mattter if that is true or not, it's simple a "what if" and example used to underscore an position.Take some time and at least read part of the Talmud to get a feel for what was happening and you'll gain a better understanding of what Jesus is saying.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The most important aspect of your arguement is that you, I believe, posit that Galileo forced christians to let go of a literal interpretation of the bible. That is incorrect.Galileo forced the Roman Catholic Church to relinquish its dogmatic belief in their fusion of Aristotelian science and their interpretation of scripture. Historically, especially at this time, the church was losing a lot of power, especially politically, so they were not willing to give up on this issue. That is why I say it was partially a political fight, but primarily a scientific fight.The scriptures can no where be interpreted to say that the earth is the center of the universe. It in fact speaks quite clearly to earth's mobility. I refer you to Job 9:6.So, while, according to you, some may have changed their interpretation of certain biblical passages, the biblical passages had nothing to do with this schism. Again, it was between Galileo, a pious scientist if there ever was one, and the roman catholic church's traditional teachings on the matter, which were founded on outside biblical teachings.And, thus I would agree that the two debates are similar that they pit two philisophies against one another, because, today's debate pitting evolution against theism, is really an underlining confrontation between naturalism and theism.As I understand, evolutionary theory either denies the existance of a supernatural cause in general or specifically rules out the God of the bible. Which leaves us in agreement on your last statement. Evolutionary belief held by an athiest would not be contradictory, but evolutionary belief held by a christian (as I have hopefully clearly described thus far) IS contradictary.

see the title.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

It, as has already been pointed out to you, does nothing of the kind.The Church choose a particular interpretation of the Bible in Galileo's time. He pointed out that the interpretation was wrong based on observations of the natural world.Now, we have new observations and these utterly invalidate another interpretation of the Bible. Those who wish to worship an interpretation are at fault if anyone comes to the conclusion that the Bible is null and void when the interpretation is shown to be in error.

And I say that the correct interpretation of the bible is that God made everything and everyone (physically speaking right now) and did so from the beginning AND that that rules out human beings evolving from a single cell, which, again, to my understanding, is one of the many positions of evolutionary theory.These two beliefs are contrary to one another, thus making theism contrary to naturalism.

Wait, so because I am a theist, I'm a Christian Creationist?

No, not necessarily, but I would say that these to discriptors closely align themselves. Especially given the fact the a christian is a theist and a theist is a creationist BUT a creationist is not necessarily a theist or a christian (which I have stated are equivilants)

Sorry but most of the US Christian Churches disagree. That's why almost every major faith has come out in support of teaching the TOE and in opposition to teaching creationism.Some of the faiths that have taken a firm position are,

• the Episcopal Church.
• the Roman Catholic Church.
• the Lutheran Church.
• the United Methodist Church.
• the United Presbyterian Church.
  

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion