tomwillrep writes:
"question you might want to ask yourself first is why has christian doctrine changed through time... hmmm..."
would it be possible to give an example of this - i've read most types/variations of bible's and they all stick to the original text-there are organisations and printing companies set up who MUSt stick to the original text thoroughly -if anything is unsure that is made clear at some point in the bible. thanks
There is no "original text" of the Bible. The many translations draw upon a multiplicity of ancient Bible texts. If you examine the footnotes that some Bible's have you'll see them mentioned occasionally. For example, the NIV footnote for the phrase "They gather together" in Hosea 9:14 (I opened to this page randomly) says, "Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint
They slash themselves." In other words, the many available manuscripts have numerous differences. Plus each translation reflects numerous different interpretations of meaning.
For examples of changes in church doctrine it is easiest to look to the Catholic church. It is no longer necessary to avoid meat on Friday. Masses are now in native languages rather than in Latin. The conviction of Galileo by the inquisition was overturned.
But you can also find changes in doctrine in the evangelical movement. Fundamentalism sprang from a philosophy first espoused by a series of essays called
The Fundamentals in the early 20th century. Biblical inerrancy, previously not a widely held tenet, and Creationism sprang from this philosophy.
one thing is that some people i guess confuse natural selection and evolution - evolution is creatures evolving in shape and form - natural selection does not make mention of any changing in creatures - it says that those "species" which were able to survive in a certain environment survived and the weaker ones/ones less adapted died out.
Natural selection is part of the theory of evolution. One simple way of stating the theory is that it is descent with modification filtered by natural selection. In other words, offspring differ from the parents, and natural selection as imposed by the environment decides which offspring survive to produce the next generation.
for evolution changing its ideas - i'm talking about the argument that our closest living ancestors are apes and now they have become chimps - ok so there can be new evidence - but what evidence can there be to suggest we came from apes and chimps are on another "branch" and then suddenly they are similar too - surely that would have been noticed originally......
I think you've picked up a few false impressions. First, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and people are all apes. Some classification systems place man in his own category in recognition that this is a sensitive issue, but man is an ape.
Second, it has been recognized for quite some time that chimps are closer to man than any other member of the ape family. There have been recent efforts to measure the degree of difference genetically, meaning how different our DNA is, and the numbers variously come in between 97% and 99% identical.
Third, changes in ideas about the descent of man are very different from changes in the theory of evolution. While we've increased our knowledge of the details enormously since Darwin, our basic expression of the theory hasn't changed at all. It is still
descent with modification filtered by natural selection. Human origins, indeed the origins of any species extinct or otherwise, is a puzzle to be ferreted out from the available evidence, and the relevant ideas at any time will reflect what is known at that time. As we uncover more fossils our ideas will certainly change. But our ideas of
how species change have not changed very much at all during the last 150 years or so. The last significant change came during the 1920s with the modern synthesis formed from the merging of Darwinian evolution with genetic theory.
--Percy
™ Version 4.2